Wayne Lanter

Wayne Lanter was born in 1937 in Belleville, Illinois. He is a Writing Fellow from the University of Iowa's Graduate Program in Creative Writing and The Aspen School of Contemporary Art, and a former Sports Editor and Contributing Editor for St. Louis Magazine. He founded and for ten years edited River King Poetry Supplement. He has taught writing and philosophy at Southwestern Illinois College for forty years.

His first book of poetry, The Waiting Room, was nominated for the Academy of American Poets' Lenore Marshal Prize. His book, At Float on the Ohta-gawa, won a Mellen Poetry Press Honorable Mention for a book-length poem commemorating the destruction of the city of Hiroshima. He is a National Endowment for the Arts recipient, Triton College Poetry Award winner, and has received grants from the Illinois Arts Council. He has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize and for an Illinois Arts Award, and for numerous other awards.