Joseph Bathanti

Joseph Bathanti is a Professor of English and McFarlane Family Distinguished Professor of Interdisciplinary Education & Writer-in-Residence at Watauga Residential College, Appalachian State University. He also mentors in Carlow University’s low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing in Pittsburgh, where he was born and raised. Bathanti served as North Carolina’s Poet Laureate (2012-14) and has received numerous literary honors, including the North Carolina Award for Literature and the Irene Blair Honeycutt Lifetime Achievement Award.

• North Carolina Award for Literature
• Donald Murray Prize
• Ragan-Rubin Award for Literary Achievement
• Mary Frances Hobson Prize
• Irene Blair Honeycutt Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts
• Roanoke Chowan Award
• Lee Smith Award

His creative and scholarly work spans Creative Writing, Poetry, Fiction, Nonfiction, Appalachian Literature, American Literature, and Literary Arts. He has authored 19 books, including poetry collections, novels, and co-edited volumes, with recent publications like Light at the Seam (2022) and upcoming works such as The Act of Contrition (2023) and The Anthology of Black Mountain College Poetry (2023). Bathanti also co-founded the Charles George VA Medical Center’s Creative Writing Program, where he served as Writer-in-Residence in 2016.