Dr. Latorial Faison

Dr. Latorial Faison was named the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Poet Laureate by Governor Spanberger on July 20, 2026, a role in which she will serve a two-year term.

Dr. Faison is an award-winning poet, author, Virginia State University English professor, Veteran Military Spouse, mother, and literary advocate born and raised in Virginia. She is committed to bringing poetry and the literary arts to communities across the Commonwealth. Her laureate work is organized around culture, hope, legacy, and lineage and positions poetry as a civic practice and cultural archive – a means of remembering the past, engaging the present, and imagining the future. Dr. Faison, a native of Southampton County and a member of the historic Wintergreen Women Writers Collectigve, is a graduate of UVA, VA TECH, and Virginia State University; she has authored and edited seventeen books, received various writing prizes and fellowships, and has been promoting poetry and the arts for decades. She is married to US Army COL (Ret) Carl J. Faison; they have three adult sons and two daughters-in-love. One of Faison’s recent books, Nursery Rhymes in Black, won the Permafrost Poetry Prize, was submitted for Pulitzer consideration, was selected for the Library of Virginia’s Carol Weinstein Author Series and is a finalist for the Virginia Literary Awards.

Please contact Dr. Faison to discuss date, audience, format, travel, honorarium, and program needs.
Email: lfaison@vsu.edu