Wesley Cullen Gibson (1959-2016) in Mobile, Ala., and raised in Richmond, Va. He received his M.F.A. from Brown University and was the recipient of a New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, a Virginia Commission for the Arts Grant, and fellowships from the Corporation of Yaddo. He came to Saint Mary’s College in 2005 as a core faculty member of the M.F.A. Program of Creative Writing, teaching workshops and seminars as well as undergraduate courses in composition, creative writing, Collegiate Seminar, and January Term.
A brilliant writer, his books—the memoir, You Are Here, and the novels, Shelter and Personal Saviors—center on family, the ones we're born into and the ones we create. His short stories appeared in The Village Voice, Mississippi Review, and Blackbird, his art criticism in The New Art Examiner. He was an editor for Bloom, a literary journal that the writer Edmund White described as the “most exciting new queer literary publication to emerge in years.”
Most recently he completed a novella set in the South about people who know that some people have all the luck in the world while most everybody else has none at all. The work is brutal and beautiful and centers on a day in the life of an elderly woman, Ruby.
A magnificent teacher, Wesley was known for his humor, his intelligence, and his ability to be both frank and supportive. He cared about precision, interiority, and emblematic moments.
