Wayne Koestenbaum has published 23 books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, including Stubble Archipelago, Ultramarine, The Cheerful Scapegoat, Figure It Out, Camp Marmalade, My 1980s & Other Essays, The Anatomy of Harpo Marx, Humiliation, Hotel Theory, Circus, Andy Warhol, Jackie Under My Skin, and The Queen’s Throat (nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award).

His next book, a novel, My Lover, the Rabbi, will be published by FSG (in the U.S.) and Granta (in the U.K.) in March 2026.

He has exhibited his visual art in solo shows at White Columns, 356 Mission, the University of Kentucky Art Museum, Millennium Film Workshop, and Gattopardo; in two-person shows at Essex Flowers and the Wege Center for the Arts; and in many group shows, including Air de Paris, Ortega y Gasset Projects, Gordon Robichaux, Klaus von Nichtssagend, Yossi Milo Gallery, FIERMAN, Jeff Bailey Gallery, Geoffrey Young Gallery, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. His first piano/vocal record, Lounge Act, was released by Ugly Duckling Presse Records; he has given musical performances of improvisatory Sprechstimme soliloquies at The Kitchen, REDCAT, Centre Pompidou, The Walker Art Center, The Artist’s Institute, the Renaissance Society, the Hammer Museum, The Poetry Project, and the Francis Kite Club.
His first feature-length film, The Collective, premiered at UnionDocs (New York) in 2021. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, and a Whiting Award. Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has acquired his literary archive. He is a Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature at the CUNY Graduate Center.