Mark Vinz, retired professor of English at Minnesota State University-Moorhead, will be honored with the Kay Sexton Award on Saturday, April 5 at the 26th annual Minnesota Book Awards Gala presented by 3M Library Systems.
One of the finest, most respected figures in the state’s literary history, Vinz served as a professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead for forty years where he mentored countless emerging writers and left a lasting mark on the literary culture at MSU. During his years there, he directed the MFA Program in Creative Writing and co-directed the Tom McGrath Visiting Writers Series from 1986 to 2006.
Early in his career, Vinz also founded and edited one of the state’s most successful literary journals throughout the 1970s, Dacotah Territory, which has been recognized as the model and inspiration for many of the other Minnesota literary magazines and small presses that would follow. In addition, Vinz edited Dakota Arts Quarterly from 1977 to 1984 and was a co-founder of Plains Distribution Service, an organization integral in getting books into small Midwestern communities.
The author of numerous books of poetry and fiction, Vinz has been the recipient several prestigious honors including three Minnesota Book Awards, six PEN Syndicated Fiction Awards, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, and a poet laureate title in North Dakota. He is also the editor of several anthologies that showcase the work of Minnesota poets and writers, including Inheriting the Land: Contemporary Voices from the Midwest, winner of a 1993 Minnesota Book Award. Now retired from his position at MSU, Vinz continues to write poetry in Moorhead. His newest collection will be published later this year by Red Dragonfly Press.