news
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...
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...
MFA Student Sydney Mayes Awarded The FSG Writer’s Fellowship
Dec. 18, 2025—The 2026 FSG Writer’s Fellowship has been awarded to the poet Sydney Mayes. President and Publisher of FSG Mitzi Angel says: “Sydney Mayes is a poet of talent and originality. Her work is at once lucid and lyrical, archivally informed and new, cerebral and attentive to the body. Drawing from intimate and national histories, from...
Alum Donika Kelly fronts Poets & Writers Magazine
Nov. 17, 2025—Poet Donika Kelly, who received her PhD in English from Vanderbilt, is featured in the November/December 2025 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine, following the publication of her third volume of poetry, The Natural Order of Things, from Graywolf Press. “In a time when escapist fantasies dominate the fiction charts, The Natural Order of Things is...
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...
Amy Quan Barry joins Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series
Oct. 31, 2025—Novelist and poet Amy Quan Barry joined the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series on October 16 with her new novel The Unveiling, which chronicles the struggles of Striker, a Black film scout, who, along with a group of wealthy white tourists, becomes stranded on a remote island in the Antarctic Peninsula during a...
New Yorker publishes MFA alum Nathan Blum
Oct. 28, 2025— A story by Creative Writing alum Nathan Blum (’25) appears in the November 3 issue of The New Yorker. “Outcomes” follows two college students who meet and form a connection. “I think I could set out to write about pretty much anything, and it would end up being in...