Jennifer Sinor

2026 Faculty University Service Award Nominee

College of Arts & Sciences | English

Jennifer Sinor is the author of five books of creative nonfiction and a forthcoming novel entitled The Beautiful Plain. Her essay collections include Sky Songs: Meditations on Loving a Broken World and Letters Like the Day: On Reading Georgia O’Keeffe. The recipient of the Stipend in American Modernism, her work has appeared in Best American Essays and The Norton Reader.

Jennifer teaches creative writing at Utah State University where she is a professor of English. In the past twenty-five years she has taught 2,000 students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Her students are now in universities across the country teaching their own students, a line of mentorship that runs back to Jennifer’s teachers and then those teachers’ teachers.

For years, Jennifer has served the English Department as chair of creative writing and now as the Interim Director of Graduate Studies. While she has helped those areas grow programmatically, what she values most is the time she has spent with colleagues, students, and staff. When she was a child, her father told her to always be the best that ever was. She was daunted by this challenge. It took her a long time to realize that being our best selves can only be found in serving others.