Patrick Lawler

In 2024, the University of Alabama Press is scheduled to publish Patrick Lawler’s novel Conversations with Extinct Animals. Previously, Rescuers of Skydivers Search Among the Clouds (winner of the 2013 Fiction Collective Two Ronald Sukenick/American Book Review Innovative Fiction Award) and The Meaning of If (a collection of short stories from Four Way Books, 2014) were published.

In addition, he has published seven books of poetry: Breathe a World (Tiger Bark Press, 2022); Child Sings in the Womb (Bitter Oleander Press, 2014); Trade World Center (Ravenna Press, 2012); Under Ground (Many Mountains Moving Press, 2011); Feeding the Fear Of The Earth (Many Mountains Moving Press, 2006); (reading a burning book) (Basfal Books, 1994); and A Drowning Man is Never Tall Enough (University of Georgia Press, 1990).

Lawler is a Professor Emeritus at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry, and a Writer in Residence at LeMoyne College. Among his awards are two New York State Foundation for the Arts Fellowships, a Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts Grant, the CNY Book Award for Fiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship.

In April 2025, his co-written script with Director Ted Schaefer, “The Arrow at Rest in Every Instant of Its Flight,” will be produced. They have written and produced three short films (“Singing to the Earth Until a Tree Grows,” “The Zeno Question,” and “I Fell in Love with the World”) and the feature-length Giving Birth to a Butterfly, which has been presented at several film festivals, including Montreal Film Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival, Chattanooga Film Festival, Big Apple Film Festival, and the Not Film Festival in Italy.