The final weeks of the semester will be enlivened by a virtual “Writers & Poets” reading series featuring faculty in the Creative Writing Program in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) reading their own works.
Beginning Nov. 30, a video of a professor reading from their own work will be released every other weekday, through Dec. 23.
The late Toni Morrison, M.A. ’55, was the inspiration for the project, according to Ishion Hutchinson, Creative Writing Program director. In considering the artist’s task in troubled times, Morrison famously wrote: “We speak, we write, we do language.”
“The video project is to reaffirm to our students and wider community how seriously we take our twin duties as artists and professors,” said Hutchinson, associate professor of English (A&S). “‘We do language’ is our ethos. It is intrinsic to our writing, teaching and programming.”
The schedule for the series:
- Monday, Nov. 30, Valzhyna Mort (poetry)
- Wednesday, Dec. 2, Nafissa Thompson-Spires (fiction)
- Friday, Dec. 4, Helena María Viramontes (fiction)
- Monday, Dec. 7, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (poetry)
- Wednesday, Dec. 9, J. Robert Lennon (fiction)
- Friday, Dec. 11, Ernesto Quiñonez (fiction)
- Monday, Dec. 14, Ishion Hutchinson (poetry)
- Wednesday, Dec. 16, Robert Morgan (fiction)
- Friday, Dec. 18, Emily Fridlund (fiction)
- Monday, Dec. 21, Joanie Mackwoski (poetry); and
- Wednesday, Dec. 23, Stephanie Vaughn (fiction).
Links to view the readings will be on the English events website and on Facebook. The link for each reading will become active on its release date at 10 a.m. ET, and released videos will remain available for viewing on the department YouTube channel.
Lynn Lauper is events coordinator for the Department of English.
