Samuel Delany is a one-of-a-kind giant of American literature, a disruptive practitioner of “outsider art,” an explorer of African-American and Gay identities, and one of the most influential and innovative science fiction writers of the last half century. In The Daily Beast, Mark Dery called him, “the Grand Old Man of polymorphously perverse science fiction.” Winner of four Nebulas and two Hugos, Delany is a “Grand Master” of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Since 1962, he has written dozens of books, including the sci-fi classics, Babel-17 (1966), Nova (1968), Dhalgren (1975), and the Return to Nevèrÿon series (1979-1987). Recent books include Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (2012) and The Atheist in the Attic (2018). Delany served as Writer-inResidence at the University at Albany in 1978.