Len Lawson
Assistant Professor of English
Office: McClurg: 112
Office Phone: 803.321.5251
Email: Len.Lawson@newberry.edu
Department: Division of Arts, Education, Humanities, and Social Sciences
Degrees:
MFA | Queens University of Charlotte (2023)
Ph.D. | Indiana University of Pennsylvania (2021)
M.A. | National University (2007)
B.S. | Winthrop University (2002)
Bio:
Dr. Len Lawson is author of three poetry collections: New Names for Stars, winner of the Lit Fox Award (Lit Fox Books, 2026); Negro Asylum for the Lunatic Insane (Main Street Rag, 2023); and Chime (Get Fresh Books, 2019). He is also editor of the poetry anthologies The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry (Blair Press, 2021) and Hand in Hand: Poets Respond to Race (Muddy Ford Press, 2017). He has received fellowships from Tin House Summer Workshop, Palm Beach Poetry Festival, Callaloo Barbados, Vermont Studio Center, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts among others. His poetry appears in African American Review, Callaloo, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, Verse Daily, and has been translated internationally.
In 2018, Dr. Lawson earned the inaugural North Carolina Poetry Society Susan Laughter Myers Poetry Fellowship. He also earned the 2020 South Carolina Academy of Authors Carrie McCray Nickens Fellowship in Poetry. In 2022, South Carolina Humanities awarded Dr. Lawson a Governor's Award for Fresh Voices in the Humanities. In 2023, his alma mater Winthrop University awarded him the Alumni Achievement Award. In addition, he received the 2025 Newberry College W.C. Carter Professorship.
Dr. Lawson initiated the proposal to revive the Writing Center at Newberry College in 2022, which returned to campus in 2024. In 2023, Dr. Lawson co-initiated the African American Studies Program at Newberry College, becoming its inaugural Director in 2024, which houses the Center for African American Studies. He also initiated the first Newberry College Black Faculty Caucus in 2023, as its inaugural Chair.