Endowed Chair
Each year, our University Endowed Chair in Creative Writing teaches one graduate MFA workshop. The Chair also visits classes, gives two readings, and supports a range of MFA programming.

Kali Fajardo-Anstine
National Book Award Finalist
2022-2024
Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the author of the novel Woman of Light and the story collection Sabrina & Corina, a finalist for the National Book Award, the PEN/Bingham Prize, The Clark Prize, The Story Prize, the Saroyan International Prize, and winner of an American Book Award, she is the 2021 recipient of the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been honored with the Denver Mayor's Award for Global Impact in the Arts and the Mountains and Plains Independent Booksellers Association Reading the West Award. She has written for The New York Times, Harper's Bazaar, ELLE, O: the Oprah Magazine, The American Scholar, Boston Review, and elsewhere, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, and Tin House. Fajardo-Anstine earned her MFA from the University of Wyoming and has lived across the country, from Durango, Colorado, to Key West, Florida.

Téa Obreht
National Book Award finalist
2020-2022

Karen Russell
Pulitzer Prize finalist
2017-2020

Ben Fountain
National Book Critics Circle Award winner
2014-2016

Robert Stone
National Book Award finalist
2010-2011

Li-Young Lee
American Book Award winner
2008-2009

Tim O'Brien
National Book Award winner
2003-2004
2005-2006
2007-2008
2011-2012

Denis Johnson
National Book Award winner
2006-2007

Barry Hannah
Pulitzer Prize finalist
2004-2005

Ai
National Book Award winner
2002-2003