Joy Priest is a writer from Louisville, KY., studying in the MFA program at the University of South Carolina. She has received grants, fellowships, and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA. Priest is a two-time finalist for the International Poetry Awards’ Rita Dove Poetry Prize from the Center for Women Writers. Her work can be found in pluck! The Journal of Affrilachian Arts & Culture, Drunken Boat, Muzzle, Vinyl, Callaloo, Best New Poets 2014, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip Hop. She won for a collection titled Elegy for Kentucky.
On Being Named the 2018 Gregory Pardlo Fellow
“I have been made electric by the news that I am the 2018 Gregory Pardlo fellow at The Frost Place. I have a hummingbird’s heartbeat! I am honored to be in the company of the previous poets who’ve been named fellows; to be the first woman recipient; and, of course, to be associated with such a brilliant mind in American Letters. I have such admiration for this poet who, like me, is dedicated to writing about his Black father—in this America—with care, complexity, and veritas. I look forward to meeting my fellow workshop members and working with The Frost Place faculty to honor the resources this opportunity affords me for my own writing.”
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