Michael Dowdy - "Tell Me about Your Bad Guys: Fathering in Anxious Times"

This (multimedia) conversation with award-winning poet and writer Michael Dowdy on his new book of creative nonfiction, Tell Me about Your Bad Guys: Fathering in Anxious Times (University of Nebraska Press, 2025), is sponsored by the department of English and the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts as part of the UGA Humanities Festival.

Hailing from Appalachia and currently professor of English at Villanova University, Dowdy’s work includes the poetry collection Urbilly, his study of Latinx poetry Broken Souths, and the critical anthology Poetics of Social Engagement, co-edited with Claudia Rankine.

There will be a video, music, conversation and readings, as Dowdy revisits his fallible yet earnest efforts to be a conscientious father in the midst of so many anxiety-inducing travesties—not least school shootings, emergent fascism, and environmental collapse. UGA associate professor of English and LACSI Éric Morales-Franceschini, author of the award-winning books The Epic of Cuba Libre, Autopsy of a Fall, and Syndrome, will host.