Colin Channer

Calabash Co-founder and former Artistic Director.

Colin Channer’s ten books as fiction writer, poet and editor include most recently Console (2023) from Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) which was named a New Yorker Magazine Best Book of 2023. His prose and poetry have appeared in Bomb, The New Yorker, The Poetry Review (UK), Conjunctions, Agni, Prairie Schooner, Virginia Quarterly and other venues.

Channer has earned significant recognition throughout his distinguished career. Recent honors include a 2023 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award for creative excellence and generosity to the broader literary community, a 2023 Richard B. Salomon Faculty Research Award from Brown University which recognizes excellence in scholarship, and a 2022 Fellowship from the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. His collection Providential was a Finalist for the 2016 OCM/Bocas Prize in poetry. He’s Associate Professor at Brown University.

Colin Channer was appointed the 7th Poet Laureate of Rhode Island in January 2024.

In 2011 Channer stepped down from his role as artistic director of the Calabash International Literary Festival.