Lisa Russ Spaar
Lisa Russ Spaar is the author/editor of fourteen books, most recently Madrigalia: New & Selected Poems (Persea Books, 2021) and a debut novel, Paradise Close (Persea Books; 2022; paperback 2025). A new collection of poems, Soul Cake (Persea Books) will appear in May 2026. Her short fiction and lyric essays have appeared in Literary Imagination, The American Scholar, The Yale Review, and elsewhere. Her honors include a Rona Jaffe Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Library of Virginia Prize for Poetry, and a NEH Distinguished Professorship. She is professor of English at the University of Virginia, where for many years she directed the Creative Writing Program.
