Critic, author, poet, National Book Award winner, and 2016 MacArthur Fellow Maggie Nelson dazzled with her 2015 genre-bending memoir The Argonauts, which Vanity Fair described as “slay[ing] entrenched notions of gender, marriage, and sexuality with lyricism, intellectual brass, and soul-ringing honesty.” Nelson’s past work includes The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning; Bluets; The Red Parts; Something Bright, Then Holes; Jane: A Murder; The Latest Winter; and Shiner. The Some Favorite Writers series is sponsored by the UCLA Department of English and Friends of English, and organized by Mona Simpson.