Colin Channer

Colin Channer was born in Jamaica and educated there and in New York, at Hunter College. His ten books include the poetry collections Console (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023), which was a finalist for the New England Book Award and listed for the PEN/Voelcker Award, and Providential (Akashic Books/Peepal Tree, 2015), which was listed for the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. 

Channer’s works of fiction include the novella The Girl with the Golden Shoes (Akashic Books, 2007); Passing Through (One World, 2004); and Waiting in Vain (One World/Ballantine, 1999), a 1998 Critic’s Choice Selection by the Washington Post. In addition to his poetry and fiction books, Channer edited the following anthologies: Kingston Noir (Akashic Books, 2012), which was named Best Book of 2012 by Spectator Magazine; So Much Things to Say: 100 Poets from the First Ten Years of the Calabash International Literary Festival (Akashic Books, 2010), alongside Kwame Dawes; and Iron Balloons: Hit Fiction from Jamaica’s Calabash Writer’s Workshop (Akashic Books, 2006). 

Channer is the recipient of several honors, including a 2023 Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award from Poets & Writers, a 2022 Cullman Center Fellowship from New York Public Library, a 2019 Amy Clampitt Residency, and a Henry Merrit Wriston Fellowship from Brown University, where he is associate professor and director of graduate studies in the department of literary arts. 

In 2001, Colin cofounded the nonprofit Calabash International Literary Festival Trust and served as the organization’s artistic director and board chairman until 2012. In 2024, he was appointed poet laureate of Rhode Island for a five-year term.