spotlight
(2/17/2022) Lisa Russ Spaar, poetry reading: 7 PM, Face Masks Required, Buttrick 101
Jan. 4, 2022—Lisa Russ Spaar is the author/editor of over twelve books of poetry and criticism, including, most recently, More Truly and More Strange: 100 Contemporary American Self-Portrait Poems (2020) and Madrigalia: New & Selected Poems (November 2021). Her debut novel, Paradise Close, will appear in April 2022. Her honors include a Rona Jaffe Award for Emerging Women Writers, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Carole Weinstein Poetry Prize, and...
(2/10/2022) Brandon Taylor, fiction reading: 7 PM, Face Masks Required, Buttrick 101
Jan. 4, 2022—Brandon Taylor is the author of the novel Real Life, which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize, as well as The National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the 2021 Young Lions Fiction Award. His work has appeared in Guernica, American Short Fiction, Gulf Coast, Buzzfeed Reader,...
(2/3/2022) Kate Daniels, nonfiction: 7 PM, VIrtual Reading
Jan. 2, 2022—Please register for this virtual reading here. Kate Daniels is the author of six collections of poetry, including A Walk in Victoria’s Secret, and In the Months of My Son’s Recovery. She taught at Vanderbilt for 25 years, helping to found the MFA program, and serving as director of creative writing. She is now the Edwin...
(1/27/2022) Shane McRae, poetry reading: 7 PM, Virtual Reading
Jan. 1, 2022—Shane McCrae grew up in Texas and California. The first in his family to graduate from college, McCrae earned a BA at Linfield College, an MA at the University of Iowa, an MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and a JD at Harvard Law School. McCrae is the author of Sometimes I Never Suffered, In...
“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.
(11/11/2021) Tommy Orange, fiction (pre-recorded virtual reading): 7 PM
Nov. 8, 2021—Tommy Orange is an American novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book, There, There, won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and the American Book Award. He is a recent graduate from the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and he...
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...