Award-winning author David Huddle will spend the 2014 spring semester at Johnson State College, where he will serve as visiting writer and a teacher and mentor to students in the college’s B.F.A. degree program in creative writing.

Huddle taught for 38 years at the University of Vermont and has been a longtime faculty member at the Bread Loaf School of English in Middlebury. He has published 17 books of fiction, poetry and essays. His novel “The Story of a Million Years” was named a Distinguished Book of the Year by Esquire magazine and a Best Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times Book Review. His latest collection of poetry, Blacksnake at the Family Reunion, received the 2013 PEN New England Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2013 Library of Virginia Award for Poetry.

While at JSC, Huddle will teach the class “Form and Theory of Writing” and serve as a senior thesis advisor to student fiction writers. He also will present a public reading.

In addition to his work with student writers at UVM and Bread Loaf, Huddle has worked with students in the creative writing M.F.A. programs of the Rainier Writing Workshop (Pacific Lutheran University, Washington) and Hollins University (Virginia). He held the 2012-13 Roy Acuff Chair of Excellence in the Creative Arts at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee. This summer, he will be a visiting faculty member at the Sewanee School of Letters in Tennessee.

“We are thrilled to have David Huddle bring his expertise, enthusiasm and love of writing and reading to JSC,” said Liz Powell, assistant professor of literature and co-editor of the college’s literary journal Green Mountains Review. “Our students will benefit from his depth of knowledge, creativity, generosity and masterful teaching. He is one of America’s best writers and teachers, and we are very fortunate to have him as our visiting writer in our B.F.A. writing program.”

JSC’s creative writing program teaches aspiring writers the craft of fiction, poetry and prose through literature courses, writing workshops and internships with the nationally recognized Green Mountains Review and the undergraduate student writing journal, Pamplemousse.

Johnson State offers two other B.F.A. programs, in studio arts and media arts. It also offers a B.A. degree in communications and community media with concentrations in print and web community journalism, photojournalism and public relations.