Crystal Wilkinson

Wilkinson is the recipient of many awards and fellowships, including the 2016 Ernest Gaines Fellowship for Literary Excellence and the Sallie Bingham Award from the Kentucky Foundation for Women for the promotion of activism and feminist artist expression. In 2006 Wilkinson was the Guest Fiction Editor and featured writer for Nantahala Review. Her short fiction piece "Holler" published in Slice Literary Magazine (Spring/Summer 2010) is nominated for the 2010 Pushcart Prize.

During this time, Wilkinson joined other Kentucky African American writers (including Kelly Norman Ellis, Ricardo Nazario y Colon, Mitchell L. H. Douglas, and Daundra Scisney-Givens) at the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center at the University of Kentucky where Frank X Walker was the assistant director. The group, later called The Affrilachian Poets, was mentored by the poet Nikky Finney who was teaching then at the University of Kentucky. In 2000, Wilkinson published her first volume, the short story collection Blackberries, Blackberries (The Toby Press, 2000), which would go on to receive the Chaffin Award for Appalachian Literature.

In 1997 Wilkinson became the Assistant Director for the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning in Lexington, Kentucky where she taught short courses and implemented many different programs and activities for Kentucky's literary arts scene. From 1997 to 2001 and again in 2008 she taught high school juniors and seniors who were juried into the creative writing discipline for the Governor's School for the Arts (Kentucky). She also served as chair of the creative writing department from 1997 to 2001. In the spring of 2004, she served as the Writer-in-Residence for the Appalachian College Association, conducting advanced creative writing classes and one-on-one instruction for undergraduate writing students at Cumberland College, Lindsey Wilson College and Berea College. She has taught creative writing at Eastern Kentucky University (2002–2003), Indiana University-Bloomington (2004–2007), and at Morehead State University (2007–2013). At present she is Writer in Residence at Berea College.

From 1989 to 1995, Wilkinson was a public information officer and community relations manager for the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, editing their quarterly environmental newsletter and handling media relations for special projects. She also began volunteering her time to public service in Lexington, most notably the Roots and Heritage Festival, helping with publicity and coordinating the literary readings.

Wilkinson attended Eastern Kentucky University in nearby Richmond, Kentucky and graduated with a B.A. in journalism in 1985. In 2003 she earned her Masters in Fine Arts degree (in creative writing) from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky.

Crystal E. Wilkinson (born 1962) is an African-American feminist writer from Kentucky.