ALMA — Alma College alumnus Jim Daniels ’78, an acclaimed writer and faculty member in Alma College’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, is being honored for a prolific period of achievement that includes receiving the 2025-26 Michigan Author Award, publishing two new books, and earning recognition from the Michigan Notable Books program.
The Library of Michigan and the Michigan Center for the Book announced in December that Daniels is the recipient of the 2025-26 Michigan Author Award, a lifetime achievement honor celebrating the collective career of a Michigan author. The award recognizes writers whose work reflects the breadth and depth of Michigan’s literary landscape.
A native of Detroit, Daniels is the author of 33 collections of poetry, seven collections of fiction, and four produced screenplays. His recent works include An Ignorance of Trees: A Memoir in Essays (Cornerstone Press, 2025), The Luck of the Fall (Michigan State University Press, 2023), The Human Engine at Dawn (Wolfson Press, 2022), and Comment Card (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2024).
The Michigan Author Award has previously honored writers such as Anne-Marie Oomen, Michael Zadoorian, Bonnie Jo Campbell, Mitch Albom, Christopher Paul Curtis and Beverly Jenkins.
Daniels’ 2025 book, An Ignorance of Trees: A Memoir in Essays, was also named to the 2026 Michigan Notable Books list. His debut nonfiction collection reflects on trees, backyard swing sets, above-ground pools, pets, hoarding, and memory, carrying his beloved Detroit throughout the essays while offering a textured biography of place rooted in the Midwest.
In 2026, Daniels published Late Invocation for Magic: New and Selected Poems, a career-spanning collection that focuses on Detroit and other Rust Belt cities. The poems explore issues of class, race, justice, and economic division, examining the distance between America’s ideals and lived realities with clarity, courage, and accessibility.
Four of Daniels’ earlier works — Birth Marks, Eight Mile High, Rowing Inland, and R E S P E C T: The Poetry of Detroit Music, co-edited with M.L. Liebler — have also been honored by the Michigan Notable Books program. He is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and two from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.
Daniels earned degrees from Alma College and Bowling Green State University. He previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University from 1981 to 2021 and in the Antioch University-Los Angeles low-residency MFA program from 2007 to 2021. He now serves on the faculty of Alma College’s low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program, continuing his long commitment to mentoring emerging writers.
Write for the 21st century. Learn more about the MFA in Creative Writing program at Alma College by visiting alma.edu/mfa.
