Nelson ’94 Receives National Book Critics Circle Award for Argonauts

Maggie Nelson ’94 received the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in the criticism category for her book, The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015). Literary editor and book critic Michael Miller describes it on the National Book Critics Circle blog as “a potent blend of autobiography and critical inquiry…[which] combines the story of her own adventures in queer family-making with philosophical meditations on gender, art, literary history, sexual politics, and much more.”

Previous works include The Art of Cruelty, a 2011 Notable Book of the Year, and Jane: A Murder, a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir. Nelson was awarded an Arts Writers grant in 2007 from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation. In 2011, she was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship for Poetry. She currently teaches in the CalArts MFA writing program. Nelson also has taught at Wesleyan, where, as an undergraduate, she majored in English.

See, also, a review by David Low ’76: wesconnect.wesleyan.edu/news-20150609-maggie-nelson