Readings & Activities

2010-2011, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013

Sponsored by the KU Department of English, the Hall Center of the Humanities, and the University of Kansas, recent visiting writers include Eula Biss, CA Conrad, Sarah Vowell, Nikky Finney, Mary Oliver, Ben Percy, Kevin Prufer, Chris Albani, Amiri Baraka, Christopher Howell, Clancy Martin, Lyn Hejinian, Salvador Placencia, Ted Kooser, Salman Rushdie, and Rita Dove.

In addition to the literary events on campus sponsored by the English Department and the Hall Center for the Humanities, there are various readings and events in Lawrence and in the surrounding areas, many of which are curated by KU English Department faculty and graduate students. The Raven Bookstore hosts the Big Tent Reading Series, featuring stories, poems, and one-act plays. The Eighth Street Taproom houses the Taproom Poetry series, which brings in national and international poets, in addition to supporting emerging local writers. The Creative Writing Graduate Student Reading Series holds readings at Genovese Restaurant downtown. Throughout the year, the series features new graduate students in the program, coordinates writer's exchanges with grad students from nearby institutions, and at the end of the year, throws a celebratory reading for writers finishing their degrees.

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2009-2010

We welcomed the following editors and authors:

• Mary Oliver, poet and National Book Award Winner
• Ben Percy, award-winning short story writer and novelist
• Fred Moten, poet
• Rolf Potts, travel writer, nonfiction writer
• Dan Hoyt, winner of the Juniper Prize in Short Fiction
• China Mieville, twice winner of the Arthur C. Clark Award
• Kevin Prufer, Pushcart Prize winning poet
• Chris Abani, PEN winner
• Amiri Baraka, acclaimed poet

2008-2009

We welcomed the following editors and authors:

• Lorin Stein, senior editor of Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Eli Horowitz, publisher of McSweeney’s
• Michael Chabon, novelist and essayist
• Chris Howell, poet
• Clancy Martin, novelist

We also welcomed the novelist Laura Moriarty as an assistant professor of creative writing and a permanent member of our faculty

More to be announced...

Congratulations to KU alumni Dan Hoyt for winning the Juniper Prize for Fiction from the University of Massachusetts Press for his collection A Sort of Family

2007-2008

We welcomed the following writers:

• Kellie Wells, short story writer and novelist, winner of the Flannery O'Connor Prize
• Michael Martone, fiction and nonfiction writer
• Scott Heim, novelist, author of Mysterious Skin and We Disappear
• John Price, essayist
• Paul Muldoon, acclaimed poet
• Rachel Sherman; short story writer and novelist
• Lyn Hejinian; poet, essayist, and translator

Kansas Poet Laureate Denise Low served as writer-in-residence during the spring semester, 2008

2006-2007

We welcomed the following writers and editors:

• Nuruddin Farah , prize-winning Somali novelist
• Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate
• Michael Parker (Hello Down There)
• B.H. Fairchild, poet (The Art of the Lathe)
• Todd Marshall, poet (Dare Say)
• Sam Lipsyte, fiction writer, (Homeland)
• Kathy Pories, senior editor at Algonquin
• Clancy Martin, novelist

We were also pleased to also host writers-in-residence Bob Day (The Last Cattle Drive) and Gary Lutz (Stories in the Worst Way).