faculty
Graduating Seniors Reading – April 24
Apr. 14, 2026—Join us as we celebrate the creative writers who are part of the Class of 2026. Graduating seniors will read excerpts from their short stories and poems to celebrate their creative endeavors. Central Library Community Room 6:00 PM Reception | 7:00 PM Reading more news
Graduating Majors Celebration – May 7
Mar. 27, 2026— Email with questions. MORE NEWS
Queer Latinx social dancing lecture and workshop – March 26/27
Mar. 24, 2026—More news
SWING literary magazine event features MFA professor Tony Earley – March 25
Mar. 12, 2026— Wednesday, March 25 6:30 PM Reading Vanderbilt Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South Nashville, TN 37212 On Wednesday, March 25, at 6:30pm, join Nashville’s Porch Writers’ Collective and Vanderbilt’s Special Collections and University Archives to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of...
Jared Harvey to publish chapbook “Ten Islands”
Mar. 10, 2026—Lecturer Jared Harvey, whose pen name is Jared Joseph, will publish a new chapbook, Ten Islands, with Essay Press. The work is part of a larger project, One Thousand Islands, wherein the author eats a Reuben sandwich each week and documents the experience. “A juicy, idiotically thorough chronicle of one of the more important deli...
Akshya Saxena to edit new series on accented thinking
Mar. 10, 2026—Associate Professor Akshya Saxena and the co-editors of Thinking with an Accent have launched “Accented,” a new open-access book series from Amherst College Press. Accented publishes works exploring accent as a critical mode of cultural production and interpretation. The series seeks to model accented thinking as a way to disturb the normative logics of academic, archival, media, legal,...
Shelby Johnson to deliver Drake Lecture – March 20
Mar. 3, 2026—Friday, March 20 10:00 – 11:00 AM Divinity 127 “Dreaming Sacagawea” Across the thousands of pages that comprise the eighteen modern volumes of Lewis and Clark’s journals (1803-1806), Sacagawea appears in just a hundred passages. Although she may be the most documented Indigenous woman of the early 19th century, few of these entries referred to...
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.
Major Jackson featured in Vanderbilt Research News
Jan. 30, 2026—Director of Creative Writing and Department of English Professor Major Jackson provides his writing expertise in “Devouring the Art of Language.” “Lyric poetry has as its material the dazzling complexity and beauty of raw emotions and thought, which can be awkward and embarrassing,” Jackson said. “My classes are about normalizing the conversations we have with...
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...