reading series
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—Click to download the 2025 newsletter.
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...
Fiction reading with Marie-Helene Bertino – Thursday, November 6
Oct. 28, 2025—Thursday, November 6 Book-signing: 6:30 PM Reading: 7:00 PM Special Collections Library 1101 19th Ave South, Nashville, TN 37212 At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but...
Taylor Swift scholar to join Vanderbilt Reading Series – Thursday, October 30
Oct. 24, 2025—Harvard Professor Stephanie Burt will discuss the poetical & musical genius of Taylor Swift on Thursday, October 30 in the Special Collections Library at 7pm. The book signing will begin shortly before the reading at 6:30. Click to read the full press release [pdf]. Stephanie Burt is a poet, literary critic, and professor with nine...
Victoria Chang joins the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series
Oct. 7, 2025—Poet Victoria Chang joined the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series on October 2 with her collection With My Back Against the World, which NPR called “poems of remarkable vividness and depth . . . engaging in a constant celebration of life in terms of its inexorable passing, a feast of grief in...
Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination – October 24
Oct. 3, 2025— Friday, October 17 12:00 – 2:00 PM Central Library 211 Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination a lecture by Soraya Murray Soraya Murray contemplates the pivotal figure of the Black technologist, also known as ‘Black tech,’ in technothriller films. This work is part of Murray’s forthcoming Technothriller: Film and the American Imagination (MIT, 2026),...
Lydi Conklin joins the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series
Sep. 19, 2025—Assistant Professor Lydi Conklin joined the Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series on September 4 to share their new novel Songs of No Provenance. In addition to reading from the work, which the Chicago Review of Books called “a great American music novel . . . a lush, wild story, textured with sensory and technical descriptions...