Mark Nowak

Mark Nowak is a poet, social critic, and labor activist. He is the author of Shut Up Shut Down (Coffee House Press, 2004, afterword by Amiri Baraka), a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and Coal Mountain Elementary (Coffee House Press, 2009), which Howard Zinn called “a stunning educational tool.” He is a 2010 Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Freedom Plow Award for Poetry & Activism from Split This Rock (2015). A native of Buffalo, Nowak currently directs the MFA Program at Manhattanville College and is the founding director of the Worker Writers School in collaboration with the PEN American Center.