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poet Cornelius Eady leans on a lectern and speaks to a crowd of students and faculty seated in a lecture hall

VandyLit: The Gertrude & Harold Vanderbilt Reading Series

About the Vanderbilt Reading Series

The Gertrude and Harold Vanderbilt Reading Series is named in honor of Vanderbilt founder Cornelius Vanderbilt’s great-grandson and his wife. Each semester, the series brings several professional writers to campus to read from their works and visit classes. This unique and extraordinary program gives English department students and faculty, the Vanderbilt community, and Nashville’s citizens a chance to meet and talk with some of the best writers of our day.

For more information about the Reading Series and to sign up for our e-mail announcement list, fill out the form below:

  2024-2025 Readings

The Vanderbilt Department of English and Creative Writing Program is pleased to announce the Gertrude and Harold Vanderbilt Reading Series 2024-2025. Click here for the official press release with more details about this year’s series.

All events will be held on Thursday evenings. Book signings and ‘Meet the Author’ events will begin at 6:00 pm, followed by the readings which begin promptly at 7:00 pm.

 

Fall 2024

♦ September 12: Paisley Rekdal, Poetry, Buttrick Hall 102

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paisley Rekdal is the author of essays and poetry including Animal Eye, Imaginary Vessels, Nightingale, and West: A Translation, longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award in Poetry and winner of the 2024 Kingsley Tufts Prize. Her newest works of nonfiction include a book-length essay, The Broken Country: On Trauma, a Crime, and the Continuing Legacy of Vietnam and Appropriate: A Provocation. She guest edited Best American Poetry 2020. Her poems and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The New Republic, Tin House, the Best American Poetry series, and on National Public Radio. Her work has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, a Civitella Ranieri Residency, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes (2009, 2013), Narrative‘s Poetry Prize, and the AWP Creative Nonfiction Prize. She is a Distinguished Professor at the University of Utah. Between 2017-2022, she served as Utah’s Poet Laureate, receiving a 2019 Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She currently serves as poetry editor for High Country News.

 

♦ September 26: Ilya Kaminsky, Poetry, Buttrick Hall 101

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Deaf Republic, The New York Times’ Notable Book, and Dancing In Odessa, and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry, In the Hour of War: Poems from Ukraine, and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva. He is the recipient of The Los Angeles Times Book Award, The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, The National Jewish Book Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, The Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, Lannan Fellowship, Academy of American Poets’ Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, and Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize. His poems have been translated into over twenty languages, and his books are published in many countries. In 2019,  Kaminsky was selected by BBC as “one of the 12 artists that changed the world.” He currently teaches in Princeton and lives in New Jersey.

 

♦ October 17: Edward P. Jones, Fiction, Alumni Hall 206 Reading Room

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edward P. Jones is the author of the short-story collections Lost in the City and All Aunt Hagar’s Children, and the novel The Known World, which received the Pulitzer Prize in 2004. His many other honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and the PEN/Malamud Award. He is also the recipient of the National Book Critics Circle award, the International IMPACDublin Literary Award, the Lannan Literary Award, and a MacArthur Fellowship.

 

♦ October 31: V.V. Ganeshananthan, Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

V. V. Ganeshananthan is the author of the novels Brotherless Night, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and an NPR Book of the Year, and Love Marriage. Her work has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, and The Best American Nonrequired Reading, among other publications. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from The National Endowment for the Arts, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, Yaddo, MacDowell, and the American Academy in Berlin. She has served as visiting faculty at the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan and at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and now teaches in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota, where she is a McKnight Presidential Fellow and associate professor of English. She co-hosts the Fiction/Non/Fiction podcast on Literary Hub, which is about the intersection of literature and the news.

 

♦ November 14: Brandon Hobson, Fiction, Alumni Hall 202 Memorial Hall

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Brandon Hobson is the author of the novels, The Removed, Where the Dead Sit Talking, finalist for the National Book Award, and other books. His fiction has won a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in the Best American Short Stories, McSweeney’s, American Short Fiction, Conjunctions, NOON, and in many other publications. He has received fellowships from Guggenheim Foundation, the UCROSS Foundation and Ragdale. He teaches creative writing at New Mexico State University and at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation Tribe of Oklahoma.

 

♦ December 5: Gregory Pardlo, Poetry, Buttrick Hall 101

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gregory Pardlo is the author of the poetry collections Spectral Evidence and Digest, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other books include Totem, winner of the American Poetry Review/ Honickman Prize, and Air Traffic, a memoir in essays. His honors include fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a faculty member of the MFA program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-University-Camden and Co-Director of the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University-Camden. He is currently a visiting professor of creative writing at NYU Abu Dhabi.

 

Spring 2025

♦ January 16: Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Poetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aimee Nezhukumatathil is the author of the poetry collections Oceanic, Lucky Fish, At the Drive-in Volcano, Miracle Fruit, and the essay collections Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees and World of Wonder. With poet Ross Gay, she is also co-author Lace & Pyrite. Her poems and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Tin House, Prairie Schooner, Brevity, American Poetry Review, New England Review, and the Best American Poetry anthology. Her honors include the Pushcart Prize, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Mississippi Institute for Arts and Letters Award in poetry. She teaches at University of Mississippi and serves as poetry editor for Orion Magazine.

 

♦ January 30: Ottessa Moshfegh, Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ottessa Moshfegh is the author of four novels My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Death in Her Hands, Lapvona and Eileen, shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella McGlue. She lives in Southern California. Originally from Boston, Ottessa Moshfegh now lives in Los Angeles. She has received the Pushcart Prize, the O. Henry Award, and a Plimpton Prize from The Paris Review for her short fiction as well as a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. A prolific essayist, Moshfegh’s work has appeared in outlets including Vice, The New Yorker, Granta, and various online journals.

 

♦ February 13: Adam Haslett, Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adam Haslett is the author of the novels Mothers and Sons, Imagine Me Gone, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award; You Are Not a Stranger Here, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award; and Union Atlantic, winner of the Lambda Literary Award and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize. His books have been translated into thirty languages, and his journalism on culture and politics have appeared in The Financial Times, Esquire, New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, The Nation, and The Atlantic, among others. He has been awarded the Berlin Prize by the American Academy in Berlin, a Guggenheim fellowship, the PEN/Malamud Award, the PEN/Winship Award, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

 

♦ March 20: Adam Ross, Fiction

   

Adam Ross is the author of the short story collection Ladies and Gentlemen, and the novels Playworld and Mr. Peanut, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Economist. He has been a fellow in fiction at the American Academy in Berlin and a Hodder Fellow for Fiction at Princeton University. Adam serves as editor of The Sewanee Review. Born and raised in New York City, he lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with his two daughters.

 

♦ April 3: Alina Grabowski, Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Alina Grabowski grew up in coastal Massachusetts and holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Vanderbilt University. Her debut novel, Women and Children First, was published by SJP Lit in 2024. She lives in Austin, Texas.

 

♦ April 3: Kelsey Norris, Fiction

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kelsey Norris is a writer and editor from Alabama. She earned an MFA from Vanderbilt University and has worked as a teacher in Namibia, a school librarian, and a bookseller. Her work has been published in The Kenyon Review, Black Warrior Review, and The Rumpus, among others. She is currently based in Washington, DC. Her debut story collection, House Gone Quiet, is a finalist for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and is available wherever books are sold.

 

♦ April 3: Tiana Clark, Poetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tiana Clark is the author of the poetry collections Scorched Earth, I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood, winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and the chapbook Equilibrium. Clark is the recipient of a Kate Tufts Discovery Award, National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, Rattle Poetry Prize, Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship, Pushcart Prize, and the Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing. She is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. Clark is a graduate of Vanderbilt University (M.F.A) and Tennessee State University (B.A.). Her writing has appeared in or is forthcoming from The New Yorker, Poetry Magazine, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Virginia Quarterly Review, Tin House Online, Kenyon Review, BuzzFeed News, American Poetry Review, Oxford American, The Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. She teaches at the Sewanee School of Letters and is the Grace Hazard Conkling Writer-in-Residence at Smith College.

 

♦ April 7: Stephanie Niu, Literary Prize Winner, Poetry

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stephanie Niu is the author of I Would Define the Sun, inaugural winner of the inaugural Vanderbilt University Literary Prize. She also is the author of the chapbooks Survived By: An Atlas of Disappearance, winner the 2023 Host Publications Chapbook Prize and She Has Dreamt Again of Water, winner of the 2021 Diode Editions Chapbook Contest. Her work has appeared in The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, Literary Hub, Copper Nickel, Ecotone Magazine and other publications. She holds a bachelor’s degree in symbolic systems and a master’s degree in computer science from Stanford University. She received a Fulbright scholarship for research on Christmas Island’s labor history, through which she led youth poetry workshops and published the zine Our Island, Our Future. She lives in New York City.

 


Visit the Vanderbilt University Bookstore or view their website here to pick up a book by a writer featured in the Visiting Writer Series!

 

Previous Visiting Writers

Please see below for a list of previous visiting writers by year and genre.

  • Poets - Patricia Smith, Michael Collier, Maggie Millner, Megan Fernandez, Edgar Kunz, Anders Carlson-Wee, and Bianca Stone

  • Fiction Writers - Sidik Fofana, Claire Jiménez, Rebecca Makkai, Sigrid Nunez, Jamil Jan Kochai, and Angie Cruz

  • Poets: Aria Aber, Jill Bialosky, Michael Collier, Carolyn Forché, John Murillo, 
  • Fiction Writers: Uwem Akpan, Katie Kitamura, Megha Majumdar, Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Laura Van Den Berg
  • Poets: Didi Jackson, Carl Phillips, Sonia Sanchez, Carlina Duan, Shane McCrae, Lisa Russ Spaar, Cara Dees, Mark Jarman, Vievee Francis
  • Fiction Writers: Sheba Karim, Deb Olin Unferth, Lydia Peelle, Tommy Orange, Brandon Taylor, Rebecca Bernard, Lorraine López, Aimee Bender
  • Nonfiction/Memoir Writers: Deb Olin Unferth, Kate Daniels, Margaret Renkl

AY 2020-2021:

  • Poets: Timothy Donnelly, Major Jackson, Destiny Birdsong, Edward Hirsch, Monica Youn, Toi Derricote
  • Fiction Writers: Dana Johnson, Simon Han, Lee Conell, Lorraine Lopez, Odie Lindsey, Luis Alberto Urrea, Alexander Chee
  • Nonfiction/Memoir Writers: Fred Arroyo, Myriam Gurba, Alex Espinoza, and Daisy Hernandez

Fall 2019 – Spring 2020

  • Poets: Michelle Penaloza, Beth Bachmann, Kate Daniels, Nicole Sealey, Chad Abushanab, Melissa Range. 
  • Fiction writers: Lysley Tenorio, Samantha Hunt, Charles D’Ambrosio
  • Nonfiction writers: Daisy Hernandez

Fall 2018 – Spring 2019

  • Poets: Danez Smith, Carl Dennis, Blas Falconer, Cathy Hong, Lisa Dordal, Marie Howe, Mary Szybist, Tiana Clark, Edgar Kunz, Anders Carlson-Wee, Beth Bachmann, Kate Daniels
  • Fiction writers: Leopoldine Core, Nafissa Thompson-Spires, Piyali Battacharya, Justin Quarry, Carmen Maria Machado, Nayomi Munaweera, Margot Livesey.
  • Nonfiction writer: Camille Dungy

Fall 2017 – Spring 2018

  • Poets Camille Dungy, Molly McCully Brown, Marilyn Kallet, Arthur Smith, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Kendra DeColo
  • Fiction writers: Kevin Brockmeier, Kirstin Valdez Quade, Daniel Alarcón, Lee Conell, Susan Choi, Danzy Senna, Amitav Ghosh, Bryn Chancellor, Amy Hempel
  • Nonfiction writer: Joy Castro.

Fall 2016 – Spring 2017

  • Poets: Terri Witek, Ross Gay, Ocean Vuong, and Ada Limón
  • Fiction writers: Danielle Evans, Ann Patchett, Meg Wolitzer, and Jenny Offill.

Fall 2015 – Spring 2016

  • Poets: Paul Muldoon, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, T.R. Hummer, Wyatt Prunty, Nate Marshall, and Jacqueline Osherow
  • Fiction writers: Charles Baxter, Ottessa Moshfegh, Jaimy Gordon, Lan Samantha Chang, and Julian Barnes
  • Nonfiction writers: Brando Skyhorse and Daisy Hernandez.

Fall 2014 – Spring 2015

  • Poets: Bruce Beasley, David Kirby, A. Van Jordan, Natasha Trethewey, and Jane Hirshfield
  • Fiction writers: Kevin Wilson, Gish Jen, Stuart Dybek, Leah Stewart, Claire Vaye Watkins, and Jamie Quatro
  • Nonfiction writers: Amy Hoffman and Sarah Gorham.

Fall 2013 – Spring 2014

  • Poets: Kevin Young, Lynn Emanuel, David Wojahn, Julie Bruck, and Eavan Boland
  • Fiction writers: Deborah Eisenberg, Edmund White, Steve Stern, Justin Torres, Christine Schutt, and Chris Bachelder
  • Nonfiction writer: Dwight Garner.

Fall 2012 – Spring 2013

  • Poets: Nikky Finney, Jennifer Grotz, Robert Wrigley, Adam Zagajewski, Chase Twichell, Thomas Lux, Tracy Smith, Stephen Dobyns, Garrett Hongo, and Michael Longley
  • Fiction writers: Dan Chaon, Madison Smartt Bell, Adam Ross, Lauren Groff, and Cary Holladay
  • Nonfiction writer: Charlotte Pierce Baker.

Fall 2011 – Spring 2012

  • Poets: Billy Collins, Christopher Buckley, Terrance Hayes, Nick Flynn, Alicia Ostriker, Elizabeth Spires, and Don Paterson
  • Fiction writers: Jaimy Gordon, Rattawut Lapchoreonsap, Anthony Doerr, Wells Tower, Lorrie Moore, Manuel Munoz, Maile Meloy, and Bonnie Jo Campbell.

Fall 2010 – Spring 2011

  • Poets: Frank Bidart, Carl Phillips, Ciaran Carson, Tom Sleigh, Jericho Brown, Edward Hirsch, Molly Peacock, Mary Kinzie, and Bobby Rogers
  • Fiction writers: Bobbie Ann Mason, Tom Perrotta, Salvatore Scibona, Peter Ho Davies, Aimee Bender, Lydia Peelle, and Holly Goddard Jones.

Fall 2009 – Spring 2010

  • Poets: Cornelius Eady, Jean Valentine, and Rebecca Seiferle
  • Fiction writers: Randall Kenan and Jill McCorkle
  • Memoirists: Bich Minh Nguyen and Honor Moore.

 

_A_

Diane Ackerman,  Julia Alvarez, Agha Shahid Ali, Craig Arnold, and Kingsley Amis, and 

_B_

Richard Bausch

_C_

Fred Chappell, J. M. Coetzee, and Judith Ortiz Cofer

_D_

Junot Diaz,  Ellen Douglas, Rita Dove, and Pam Durban

_E_

Stanley Elkin and Martín Espada

_F_

Ruth Fainlight and Richard Ford

_G_

Ellen Gilchrist, Marita Golden, Mary Gordon, Linda Gregerson, and R. S. Gwynn

_H_

Jessica Hagedorn, Seamus Heaney, Tony Hoagland, Garrett Hongo, Andrew Hudgins, and T. R. Hummer 

_J_

Donald Justice

_K_

Pauline Kael, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Maxine Kumin

_L_

Wally Lamb, Sydney Lea, Chang-rae Lee, David Lehman, Philip Levine, Margot Livesey, Robert Lowell, and Alison Lurie

_M_

Erin McGraw, Medbh McGuckian, William Matthews, and Peter Matthiessen

_N_

Antonya Nelson and Marilyn Nelson

_P_

Anne Patchett, V.S. Pritchett, and Wyatt Prunty

_S_

Alan Shapiro, Allan Sillitoe, Lee Smith, Elizabeth Spencer, Gerald Stern, and Eileen Simpson

_T_

Richard Tillinghast and Rose Tremain

_V_

Ellen Bryant Voigt

_W_

Robert Penn Warren, Eudora Welty, James Wood, and Charles Wright

_Y_

Karen Yamashita and Al Young