graduate
Shelby Johnson to deliver Drake Lecture – March 20
Mar. 3, 2026—Friday, March 20 Time TBA Divinity 127 “Dreaming Sacagawea” Across the thousands of pages that comprise the 18modern volumes of William Clark and Meriweather Lewis’s journals on the Corps of Discovery (1803-1806), Sacagawea appears in just a hundred passages. Although she may be the most well-documented Indigenous woman of the early 19th century, few of...
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...
MFA student Ajla Dizdarević announces forthcoming published collection
Feb. 24, 2026—Third-year MFA student Ajla Dizdarevic‘s collection of poems, What I Learned About Dogs in the Village, will be published by Carnegie Mellon University Press. Her collection was one of four chosen from 500+ submissions for inclusion in CMUP’s poetry series. What I Learned About Dogs in the Village will be released in February 2027. Ajla Dizdarević has...
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...
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...