At 22, Amanda Gorman is heralded as “the next great figure in American poetry.” Amanda made history in 2017 by being named the first ever National Youth Poet Laureate in the United States. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she is a recent graduate of Harvard, where she studied Sociology. Since publishing a poetry collection at 16, her writing has won her invitations to the Obama White House and to perform for Lin-Manuel Miranda, Al Gore, Secretary Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai, and others. Amanda has performed 4th of July and Thanksgiving poems for CBS and she has spoken at events and venues across the country, including the Library of Congress and Lincoln Center. She has received a Genius Grant from OZY Media, as well as recognition from Scholastic Inc., YoungArts, the Glamour magazine College Women of the Year Awards, and the Webby Awards. She currently writes for the New York Times newsletter The Edit and recently signed a two-book deal with Viking (a division of Penguin Random House) after a bidding war involving eight publishers. Most recently, she traveled to Slovenia with Prada as a reporter on the company’s latest sustainability project, and penned the manifesto for Nike’s 2020 Black History Month campaign. She is the youngest board member of 826 National, the largest youth writing network in the United States.

The American Library in Paris Writer-in-Residence program was created in 2018 to foster cultural and artistic exchange between prominent writers and the Library community.

The Residency is made possible through the generous support of The de Groot Foundation.