Writer Kiese Laymon to join Nonfic Writing Program as Distinguished Visiting Prof

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Kiese Laymon
Kiese Laymon

Writer Kiese Laymon has accepted the University of Iowa’s invitation to join the Nonfiction Writing Program as Distinguished Visiting Professor next year. Widely considered one of America's most exciting young essayists, Laymon is best-known for his essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, which was named one of the best books of the year by Buzzfeed, The Believer, Salon, Guernica, Contemporary Literature, Mosaic Magazine, Library Journal, The Chicago Tribune and the Crunk Feminist Collective. Essays from the book have been subsequently anthologized in the Best American Essays, the Best of Net, and The Atlantic's Best Essays.

Laymon is also the author of the novel Long Division, which won the prestigious Saroyan International Writing Award and was hailed by The Nation as "the most exciting book . . . of the year." A regular contributor to The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Oxford American, ESPN, and Guernica, Laymon was named in 2013 a member of the Root 100, and in 2015 was selected as one of Ebony Magazine's Power 100.

Laymon currently serves as Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi and is a graduate of the MFA program at Indiana University. He will publish two books with Scribner next year, including the memoir Heavy and the novel And So On.

Kiese joins the NWP's long list of illustrious Distinguished Visiting Professors, including Vivian Gornick, Geoff Dyer, Mary Ruefle, Honor Moore, Bernard Cooper, Lia Purpura, Richard Preston, and the program's current Distinguished guest, Professor Meghan Daum.

--John D’Agata

The Nonfiction Writing Program is part of the Department of English in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.


The University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences offers about 70 majors across the humanities; fine, performing and literary arts; natural and mathematical sciences; social and behavioral sciences; and communication disciplines. About 15,000 undergraduate and nearly 2,000 graduate students study each year in the college’s 37 departments, led by faculty at the forefront of teaching and research in their disciplines. The college teaches all Iowa undergraduates through the college's general education program, CLAS CORE. About 80 percent of all Iowa undergraduates begin their academic journey in CLAS. The college confers about 60 percent of the university's bachelor's degrees each academic year.