A former Stegner Fellow and Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, Greg Wrenn is the author of the ayahuasca eco-memoir Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, an evidence-based account of his turning to coral reefs and psychedelic plants to heal from childhood trauma, and Centaur (U of Wisconsin Press 2013), which National Book Award-winning poet Terrance Hayes awarded the Brittingham Prize.
Greg's work has appeared or is forthcoming in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, LitHub, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, the Poetry Society of America, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Spiro Arts Center. On his Mothership book tour, he has spoken to audiences around the world about his work, including at Yale School of Medicine, the University of Utah School of Medicine, and the University of Virginia School of Nursing. Greg has also been on numerous podcasts, including Levi Chambers's PRIDE, and was interviewed by Emmy Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation.
As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature, and directs the JMU Creative Writing Minor. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis.
Greg is currently sending out Homesick, his second poetry collection. A student of ayahuasca since 2019, he is a trained yoga teacher and a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, having explored coral reefs around the world for over 25 years. He and his husband live in the mountains of Virginia, the ancestral land of the Manahoac and Monacan people.
Photo Credit: Matt Mendelsohn
Greg's work has appeared or is forthcoming in HuffPost, The New Republic, Al Jazeera, The Rumpus, LitHub, Writer's Digest, Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He has received awards and fellowships from the James Merrill House, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Vermont Studio Center, the Poetry Society of America, the Hermitage Artist Retreat, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the Spiro Arts Center. On his Mothership book tour, he has spoken to audiences around the world about his work, including at Yale School of Medicine, the University of Utah School of Medicine, and the University of Virginia School of Nursing. Greg has also been on numerous podcasts, including Levi Chambers's PRIDE, and was interviewed by Emmy Award-winning journalist Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation.
As an associate English professor at James Madison University, he teaches creative nonfiction, poetry, and environmental literature, and directs the JMU Creative Writing Minor. He also teaches in the low-residency MFA Program at Bennington Writing Seminars and in the Memoir Certificate Program at Stanford Continuing Studies. He was educated at Harvard University and Washington University in St. Louis.
Greg is currently sending out Homesick, his second poetry collection. A student of ayahuasca since 2019, he is a trained yoga teacher and a PADI Advanced Open Water diver, having explored coral reefs around the world for over 25 years. He and his husband live in the mountains of Virginia, the ancestral land of the Manahoac and Monacan people.
Photo Credit: Matt Mendelsohn