Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonv ...
. He lives in
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Harrisonburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Shenandoah Valley region of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. It is also the county seat of the surrounding Rockingham Cou ...
, where he is an associate professor of English at
James Madison University
James Madison University (JMU, Madison, or James Madison) is a public university, public research university in Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1908, the institution was renamed in 1938 in honor of the fourth president of the ...
. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis. From 2010-2016 he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry and then a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University.
His first book, ''Centaur'', was selected by National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes for the Brittingham Prize. His essays and poems have appeared in ''Al Jazeera'', ''The New Republic'', ''New England Review'', ''The Rumpus'', ''
Beloit Poetry Journal
The ''Beloit Poetry Journal'' is an American poetry magazine established in 1950 at Beloit College. Wrenn, a certified scuba diver, writes essays primarily about the ocean, including the coral reefs of the
Raja Ampat
Raja (; from , IAST ') is a noble or royal Sanskrit title historically used by some Indian rulers and monarchs and highest-ranking nobles. The title was historically used in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
The title has a long ...
archipelago. His nonfiction book, ''Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis'', is forthcoming in 2024 and is about turning to coral reefs, forests, and psychedelic plants to heal from childhood trauma.
Career
Awards
*
Stegner Fellowship
The Stegner Fellowship program is a two-year creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909–1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty m ...
* ''Off the Fire Road'' (Green Tower Press, 2008)
* ''Centaur'' (University of Wisconsin Press, 2013)
* ''Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis'' (Regalo Press, 2024)