Meet Eric Ekstrand, Associate Teaching Professor, Writing

Eric Ekstrand studied English at Wake Forest as an undergraduate and feels quite lucky to work alongside many of his former teachers, as well as all his colleagues and students, whom he admires so much. He joined the writing program at Wake Forest in 2012. Prior to that he served as poetry editor for Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts and resident writer at the Menil Collection. He is the founding coordinator of Boldface, a national writing conference for emerging writers, now in its eleventh year. He is a recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship from the Poetry Foundation, and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Sewanee Writer’s Conference, and the Brown foundation. His first full-length collection, Laodicea, was selected for the Omnidawn 1st/2nd Book Prize by Donald Revell, and was a finalist for the National Poetry Series. His poems can be found in Poetry, jubilat, Oversound, Black Warrior Review, Bat City Review, and elsewhere. Most recently, he completed a Tulsa Artist Fellowship where he continued collecting poems for a second book. He teaches courses in the literary essay, creative writing, and first year writing. 

He is married to Danny, and they have a dog named Ella who tires easily of them. He sings in a small choir and likes martinis and good pens. He is trying to learn to take care of a garden and to lift weights, but results in both, so far, are mixed.