Allen Wier

Allen Wier (pronounced "wire"), is an American writer and a professor at the University of Tennessee.

Wier was born in 1946 in San Antonio, Texas and spent parts of his childhood in Louisiana and Mexico. He taught at Longwood College, Carnegie-Mellon University, Hollins College, the University of Texas, Florida International University, and the University of Alabama where he directed the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing.

In 2003, Wier was inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers, along with Barry Hannah and Yusef Komunyakaa. He is widely published in anthologies and periodicals, including The New York Times, Ploughshares, and The Southern Review. Wier was previously married to the poet Dara Wier.

• Baylor University (BA)
• Louisiana State University (MA)
• Bowling Green University (MFA)

• Awarded the 27th John Dos Passos Prize for Literature, presented in November, 2008
• Special mention for his short story "The Taste of Dirt" in the Pushcart Prize volume 2005
• Inducted into the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2003
• Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction—Fellowship of Southern Writers, 1997
• Dobie-Paisano Fellowship—University of Texas and Texas Institute of Letters
• Breadloaf Fellowship
• Texas Institute of Letters Award in Short Fiction
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

• Blanco (LSU Press 1978, Avon/Bard 1980, and Harper & Row 1989)
• Things About to Disappear (LSU Press 1978 and Avon/Bard 1980)
• Departing as Air (Simon & Schuster, 1983)
• A Place for Outlaws (Harper & Row, 1989)
• Tehano (Southern Methodist University Press, 2006)

• (editor) Walking on Water and other stories (University of Alabama Press 1996)
• (editor) Voicelust: Eight Contemporary Writers on Style (University of Nebraska Press 1985)