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Keegan C. Finberg to deliver Drake Lecture – February 27
Feb. 27, 2026—Friday, February 27 2:00 – 3:00 PM Divinity 127 “Reproduction and Generality: Feminist Diets in Poetry by Bernadette Mayer, Adrian Piper and Eleanor Antin” This talk will examine feminist performance art and poetry that experiments with food intake to consider effects of the political economic welfare conditions of the 1970s. Speaking directly to the tightening...
Lecturer Payam Rahmati to present in department Works in Progress Series – February 25
Feb. 16, 2026—Wednesday, February 25 4:10 – 5:00 PM Divinity 127 An Inquiry into Grammarly’s Precision and Recall: A Comparative Study with Human Annotators Payam Rahmati This presentation is part of the Department of English Works in Progress Series with support from the John W. Poindexter Fund.
MFA alums Max McDonough and Kiyoko Reidy to join reading series – April 2
Feb. 12, 2026—Thursday, April 2 6:30 PM Literary Salon 7:00 PM Reading 8:00 PM Book Signing Vanderbilt Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South Nashville, TN 37212 Max McDonough’s debut poetry collection, Python with a Dog Inside It, won the St. Lawrence Book Award from Black Lawrence Press. His...
Poet Prageeta Sharma to join Vanderbilt Reading Series – February 19
Jan. 28, 2026—Thursday, February 19 Book-signing, 6:30 PM Reading, 7:00 PM Vanderbilt Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South Nashville, TN 37212 Prageeta Sharma is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently, Onement Won (Wave Books, 2025) and Grief Sequence (Wave Books, 2019). Her honors and awards include a 2025 NEA Creative...
Mitchell S. Jackson to join Vanderbilt Reading Series – February 12 (new date)
Jan. 6, 2026—Thursday, February 12 Book Signing, 6:30 PM Reading, 7:00 PM Vanderbilt Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South Nashville, TN 37212 (Due to weather, this reading has been postponed from January 29.) Mitchell S. Jackson is the winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing...
Creative Writing program hosts poets Didi Jackson and Patrick Paridee Samuel
Dec. 4, 2025—Vanderbilt’s Creative Writing Program hosted a salon on November 13 with assistant professor Didi Jackson and fellow poet Patrick Sharidee Samuel. They discussed their recent collections, My Infinity and And Another Thing. Following the salon, graduate and undergraduate students participated in a book-making workshop and produced their own work. For upcoming events, visit the...
Vanderbilt Reading Series welcomes novelist Rita Bullwinkel – December 4
Dec. 3, 2025—Thursday, December 4 Book-signing, 6:30 PM Reading, 7:00 PM Vanderbilt Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South Nashville, TN 37212 Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the novels Headshot (2024) and Belly Up (2018). Headshot was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and Gordon Burn Prize. It...
Marie-Helene Bertino joins Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series
Nov. 14, 2025—Novelist and short story writer Marie-Helene Bertino joined the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series on November 6 with her novel Beautyland, an American Book Award winner and National Book Critics Circle finalist, which follows Adina Giorno, born with unusual perception to a single mother in Philadelphia. The arrival of a fax machine enables her...
2025 Creative Writing newsletter now available
Nov. 13, 2025—The newsletter can be viewed by clicking here. PDF Version
Poet and anthropologist Nomi Stone features as H. S. Vanderbilt speaker – November 14
Nov. 3, 2025—Friday, November 14th 12:30 – 2:30 PM Kissam C216 Lunch will be provided, and a selection of Nomi Stone’s book will be available for attendees. Nomi Stone is an award-winning poet and anthropologist. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly 2008) and Kill Class (Tupelo 2019), which was a finalist...