University of Alaska Southeast Professor of English Emily Wall has been announced as a 2023 Alaska Literary Award winner.

The Alaska Literary Awards and Fellowships are the instrument through which the Alaska Arts & Culture Foundation and the Alaska State Council of the Arts recognize and support Alaska writers for their exceptional contributions to literature.

Emily Wall has been writing and publishing her works for more than thirty years, and teaching creative writing to others for twenty-five. She is the author of six poetry collections including Fig (Minerva Raising Press, 2023), and Breaking Into Air: Birth Poems (Red Hen Press, 2022).

In announcing her award, the committee wrote that Emily “serves as a beacon of poetic inspiration” to her students at UAS.

“The selection committee chose the perfect words to describe Emily,” said UAS Chancellor Dr. Aparna Dileep-Nageswaran Palmer. “Whether it’s through her mentorship with our literary arts journal Tidal Echoes, her passion in the classroom, or the bonds she forms with her writing, Emily is truly a guiding light for our students.”

Professor Wall holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Arizona, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature from Colby College. Her poems have been published in journals across the U.S. and Canada, most recently in Prairie Schooner and Alaska Quarterly Review.

Several of her poems have been nominated for the prestigious Pushcart Prize. She is a recent winner of Minerva Rising’s Dare to Be a Chapbook Prize which resulted in the publication of Flame in 2019. Her poem “This Forest” was chosen to be placed in Totem Bight State Historical Park in Ketchikan, Alaska.

The UAS English program is built upon an expansive foundation in the liberal arts as well as specialized training in writing and literature. Classes include rigorous study of multicultural literature, contemporary writing, and literary theory. The B.A. in English offers an emphasis in Literature and Environment, Creative Writing, or Literature.

Learn more about the UAS English program by visiting https://loom.ly/GnAuYmU