ARRIEL
VINSON
YA AUTHOR, POET, AND ESSAYIST
ABOUT
Photo by Reece T. Williams
Arriel Vinson is a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow and Midwesterner who writes about being young, Black, and in search of freedom. Her debut YA novel-in-verse, The Freedom of Falling (Putnam) is forthcoming in summer 2025. She earned her MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in Kweli Journal, Catapult, The Rumpus, Waxwing, and others. A Tin House YA Scholar, 2020 Walter Grant recipient, and 2019 Kimbilio Fellow, her work has been nominated for Best New Poets 2020, Best of the Net 2019, and a Pushcart Prize. You can connect with her on Twitter and Instagram @arriwrites.
"The writing is — I’m free from pain. It’s where nobody tells me what to do; it’s where my imagination is fecund, and I am really at my best. Nothing matters more in the world or in my body or anywhere when I’m writing."
Toni Morrison
SELECTED WORKS
FICTION
POETRY
playing the dozens with loneliness
When I told him I don’t give blowjobs on my knees and Night Terrors
Minnesota
for the gone Black boys
Ode to the Black, Sweaty House Party
Drown and The Taste of Flight
NONFICTION
On Black Decadence: How Boasting in the Midwest Taught Me About Class
After Divorce at Twenty-Four, Lizzo Taught Me to Love Myself Again
What Majorette Dancing Taught Me About Desire and My Divorce
Black Language Shouldn’t Have to Be Muted for White Readers
INTERVIEWS
Build Yourself a Boat Explores the Heartbreak of Black Womanhood
Leah Johnson Didn’t See Herself in YA Novels, so She Wrote Her Own
How Tiffany D. Jackson’s Novel Grown Was Inspired By Real Life
Kwame Alexander Wrote Why Fathers Cry at Night for His Daughters
EVENTS
Panels
The Secrets of Successful Author Interviews, Electric Literature
Big Ideas: What Control Do We Actually Have? - A Conversation with Nicola Yoon and Danielle Evans, The Loft Literary Center (moderator)
Featured Readings
Renegade Reading Series
Soul Sister Revue
We Do Language, Apogee Journal
Honey Dipped Productions, Girlhood Reading Series
Leaf Lit Live! Poetry Reading
Great weather for media
Rooted in Blackness Poetry Reading
Writing Workshops
4/27/24: Come Celebrate With Me: A Poetry Intensive (virtual), Write or Die, register here!
3/26/24: How to Break Into Author Interviews (virtual), Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute, register here!
2/29/24: Kristina Forest in conversation with Arriel Vinson at Loudmouth Books (Indianapolis, IN)
2/9/24: Erasure Poetry Workshop with Whose Books (Dallas, TX)
10/19/23: Confronting and Making Space for Heartbreak, Blue Stoop
10/17/23: Writing the YA Novel-in-Verse (5-Week Workshop), Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute
Lead Teacher for Sarah Lawrence Writer’s Week, 2023
Lead Teacher for Sarah Lawrence Writer’s Week, 2022
Lead Teacher for Sarah Lawrence Writer’s Week, 2020
Writing YA Tropes, Girls Write Now
Erasure Poetry, Girls Write Now
Big Ideas Readers Seminar: Choice and Chance, The Loft Literary Center
Contact me.
Want to book me for a workshop or event, or just have a question? Please fill out the contact form!
For book-related questions, please contact my literary agent, Jodi Reamer at Writers House: jreamer@writershouse.com