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POETRY CONTEST: Unity & Democracy
Feb. 9, 2022—Vanderbilt students are invited to express how they feel about unity and democracy through a new poetry contest. The Vanderbilt Project on Unity and American Democracy is holding the contest in partnership with the Department of English and Master of Fine Arts Creative Writing program. The theme is “what unity through American democracy means to...
Jay Clayton on Arts Engines Podcast
Feb. 8, 2022—Jay Clayton, Professor of English and Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy, appeared on the Arts Engines podcast. Arts Engines highlights the perspectives of the thought leaders and game-changers who are creating significant impact in the field of the arts. You can listen and watch here.
Margaret Renkl – PEN Literary Award
Jan. 27, 2022—Congratulations to MFA Visiting Writer Margaret Renkl, who is among the long-list of writers eligible for the PEN Literary Awards. Margaret’s book Graceland: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South is up for the “PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay”. More information can be found here. Margaret will be giving a...
Best Essay in American Literature 2021 Award Recipient
Jan. 11, 2022—Congratulations to Vanderbilt-Alumni Katherine Fusco (University of Nevada) on winning the American Literature Society’s 1921 Prize for the Best Essay in American Literature. The essay, “Techniques of Justice: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Data Portraits and the Problem of Visualizing the Race” written with Lynda C. Olman (University of Nevada) was in MELUS 46.3 in Fall 2021.
“Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919-1939” by Allison Schachter
Dec. 16, 2021—Associate Vanderbilt Professor Allison Schachter has released a new book called “Women Writing Jewish Modernity, 1919-1939”. It was published by Northwestern University Press and you can view it here.
Poem by Major Jackson Featured in On Being Podcast
Nov. 9, 2021—Gertrude Conaway Professor Major Jackson’s poem “Blunts” was featured on the podcast Poetry Unbound. Pádraig Ó Tuama gives a reading and discussion of the poem, which appears in Major’s first book “Leaving Saturn” which will have been published twenty years ago next year. To listen to the podcast click here.
Read Sandy Solomon’s Poem “Spring Recalled in Spring” in The New Yorker (10/18/2021)
Oct. 18, 2021—Congratulations to Sandy Solomon on the publication of her poem, “Spring Recalled in Spring,” in this week’s (10/18/2021) copy of The New Yorker! Click here to read the poem and to listen to audio of her reading it.
Poem by Tiana Clark Published in The Atlantic
Sep. 23, 2021—Congratulations to Tiana Clark, who received her MFA in Creative Writing at Vanderbilt University, on the publication of her poem “Broken Sestina Reaching for Black Joy” in The Atlantic! Click here to read the poem.
VU Graduate Bryan Byrdlong Receives Prestigious Poetry Fellowship
Sep. 14, 2021—Bryan Byrdlong (he/him) was recently announced as a 2021 recipient of the Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowship. Byrdlong majored in English/Creative Writing at Vanderbilt University, is a Black writer from Chicago, Illinois. He is a graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, and a PhD candidate in Creative...
Pallavi Wakharkar Wins 2021 Iowa Review Award for Fiction
Jun. 10, 2021—Congratulations to Pallavi Wakharkar on her reception of the 2021 Iowa Review Award for Fiction! Click here to see the announcement.