Home → Maine Resources → Maine Writers Search → Maine Writers List → A Maine Writer

McNair, Wesley (1941 - )

Genre: Non-Fiction, Poetry

Wes McNair is a poet and professor emeritus and writer-in-residence at University of Maine-Farmington. He was born in Newport, NH, grew up in rural parts of New Hampshire and Vermont, and has lived in Mercer, Maine, since 1987.

He received a B.A. degree in English from Keene State College (1963), an M.A. degree in English from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College (1968), and an M.Lit. in American Literature from Bread Loaf (1975). He was previously a visiting professor of creative writing at Colby College in Waterville, Maine and professor of English at Colby-Sawyer College (NH) from 1968 to 1987, where he founded their American Studies program. He received an honorary degree from Colby-Sawyer in 2002.

McNair received the Sarah Josepha Hale Award, given to a distinguished writer connected with New England, in 1997. He's also received Rockefeller, Fulbright, and Guggenheim grants. Poems from Talking in the Dark have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and some are included in the 1999 edition of The Best American Poetry. Other honors include an Emmy Award, the Devins Award, and poetry prizes from several magazines. He has twice served on the nominating jury for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry. McNair was named Maine's Poet Laureate by Governor Paul LePage in March 2011.