ABOUT

Renée K. Nicholson chases the muse across disciplines, including poetry, prose, and academic work and is particularly fascinated by the human capacity to overcome obstacles. Her creative and academic writing has appeared in The Millions, Electric Literature, Poets & Writers, Leadership and the Humanities, Synapses: A Journal of Health Humanities and Bellevue Literary Review. Her poetry collections include Feverdream (forthcoming 2026), Postscripts, and Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center and the art and poetry chapbook What We Do in the Hollows with Sally Jane Brown. Her nonfiction books include Fierce and Delicate: Essays on Dance and Illness and the co-edited, award-winning anthology Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives of Illness, Disability, and Medicine. 

 

A past Emerging Writer-in-Residence at Penn State-Altoona, Renée recently served as director of the Humanities Center at West Virginia University (now emerita). Renée was the 2018 recipient of the Susan S. Landis Award from the State of West Virginia for her work collaborating with health professionals and patients to tell authentic stories. She is a creative partner in Healthcare Is Human, a storytelling initiative, and is a Series Editor for Connective Tissue at WVU Press. Renée has received grants, fellowships, and residencies from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, the West Virginia Humanities Council, the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute, the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, Chateau d'Orquevaux, and other organizations. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and a Certificate of Professional Achievement in Narrative Medicine from Columbia University and is an active member of the National Book Critics Circle. A seventh generation West Virginian, she lives in Morgantown.