Laura Neal

2021 Juanita J Craft Artist Residency Recipient

Laura Neal is a black, Dallas-based poet greatly influenced by social and environmental narratives. Peers and educators have described her work as Georgic, narrative, lyrical, surreal, and cultural. She is interested in poetry’s ability to effect a society in a form analogous to religion, though compelled by a subtle call-and-response. She renders the ever-present experiences that occur everyday but go un- noted because of the standard lens of the β€œeveryday”.

She received her BA from Bowie State University and her MFA from the University of Maryland College Park. Her work is published or forthcoming in Academy of American Poets, Appalachian Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Boston Art Review, FreeBlackSpace, and Green Mountains Review, among others. She has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center (Provincetown, MA), CALLALOO (Providence, RI), Juniper Writing Institute (Amherst, MA), Hambidge Center for Creative Arts (Rabun Gap, GA) and the Oak Spring Garden Foundation (Upperville, VA). She currently teaches creative writing at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Portfolio: https://lneal08.wixsite.com/website-1

The South Dallas Cento: https://sdcc.dallasculture.org/the-south-dallas-cento/


Learn more about the Juanita J. Craft Artist Residency