Creative Writing Events 2025-26

Rachel Kushner, Closs Writer-in-Residence, Reading and Reception

Monday, October 20, 2025 – 4:15pm – 6:00pm | Kirby 104

The Ruth Mary Callahan Closs Residency was established in 1984 by Fred and Joan Closs in honor of Fred’s mother, Ruth Mary Callahan Closs. Fred Closs was a long-time member of the Department of English who brought many writers to campus and who originated the Roethke Poetry Festival, now the Roethke Humanities Festival.

Rachel Kushner is the author of the novels CREATION LAKE, THE MARS ROOM, THE FLAMETHROWERS, and TELEX FROM CUBA, a book of short stories, THE STRANGE CASE OF RACHEL K, and THE HARD CROWD: ESSAYS 2000-2020. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Folio Prize, the James Tait Black Prize, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was twice a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction. She is a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow and the recipient of the Harold D. Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her books have been translated into twenty-seven languages. Her fiction has been published in the New Yorker and the Paris Review, and her nonfiction in Harpers and the New York Times Magazine.

Flash Fiction Contest and Reading with Samuel Oluwatosin Kolawole

Wednesday, November 12, 2025 – 4:15pm – 6:15pm | Gendebien Room, Skillman Library

The winner and honorable mentions of our student Flash Fiction Contest will be invited to read their work along with the judge, Samuel Kọ́láwọlé, on November 12th. A reception and book signing will follow.

Samuel Kọ́láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, won the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the International Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and is currently a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel. His work has also been recognized as a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, and the UK’s First Novel Prize.

He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and went on to earn graduate degrees from Rhodes University in South Africa, Vermont College of Fine Arts, and Georgia State University, where he completed his PhD in English and Creative Writing. He now teaches fiction writing as an assistant professor of English and African studies at Pennsylvania State University and recently joined the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers as a faculty member.

Sponsored by: Department of English

H. MacKnight Black Poetry Reading with Aracelis Girmay

Monday, April 20, 2026 – 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm | Kirby

Aracelis Girmay is a poet who makes works across genres. She is the author of the poetry collections GREEN OF ALL HEADS (BOA, 2025), the black maria (BOA, 2016), Kingdom Animalia (BOA, 2011), and Teeth (Curbstone, 2007). For her work she was named a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2018. Her books have also been named finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She has received fellowships from the Whiting Foundation, Civitella Ranieri, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Cave Canem Foundation, among other foundations. Girmay is the author of the chapbook, and was a flower, made in collaboration with book artist Valentina Améstica. Other recent collaborations include the picture books Kamau & ZuZu Find a Way with artist Diana Ejaita and What Do You Know? with artist Ariana Fields (both published with Enchanted Lion). Commissioned by the Authors Guild in collaboration with Tanglewood, Girmay is currently working on an experiment for the stage with director Dawn M. Simmons and musicians Ashleigh Gordon and Brittany J. Green.

Girmay is the editor of How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton (BOA, 2020) and So We Can Know: Writers of Color on Pregnancy, Loss, Abortion, and Birth (Haymarket Books, 2023). She is on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund and in 2025 completed her final year as Editor-at-Large for the Blessing the Boats Selections.

Jean Corrie Poetry Reading with George Abraham

Tuesday, April 28, 2026 – 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm | Gendebien Room, Skillman Library

George Abraham (they/هو) is a Palestinian American poet, essayist, critic, and performance artist. They are the author of When the Arab Apocalypse Comes to America (Haymarket, 2026) and Birthright (Button Poetry, 2020), which won the Arab American Book Award and was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. They are the Editor-at-Large of Mizna, and co-editor of HEAVEN LOOKS LIKE US: Palestinian Poetry (Haymarket, 2025), which was long-listed for the Palestine Book Award. They are a graduate of Northwestern’s Litowitz MFA+MA program, and teach at Amherst College as a Writer-in-Residence.

Sponsored by: Department of English