Students in the Lewis Center for the Arts’ world-renowned Program in Creative Writing will present new work in a series of readings. On April 30 at 5:15 p.m. at Chancellor Green Rotunda on the University campus, students from spring workshops in fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and literary translation will read from their work completed during the past semester. There will be two events during which seniors completing a certificate in the Program will read from their thesis work, which they completed over the course of the past academic year. On May 5 at 4:30 p.m. at the Palmer House, 1 Bayard Lane, seniors will read from their thesis work in poetry, screenwriting, and translation, and May 7 at 4:30 p.m. also at the Palmer House, seniors will read from their thesis work in fiction. The readings, part of the Program in Creative Writing’s Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series at the Lewis Center for the Arts, are free and open to the public. All three events will be followed by public receptions.
Through the Program, students can earn a certificate in creative writing in addition to their degree in a major. They have the opportunity to pursue original work in fiction, poetry, screenwriting and translation under the guidance of 15 practicing, award-winning writers, including Jeffrey Eugenides, Chang-rae Lee, Paul Muldoon, Joyce Carol Oates, James Richardson, Tracy K. Smith, Susan Wheeler, and Edmund White. Small workshop courses, averaging eight to ten students, provide intensive feedback and instruction for both beginning and advanced writers. Each year 15 to 20 seniors work individually with a member of the faculty on a creative writing thesis, such as a novel, screenplay, or a collection of short stories, poems, or translations.
On May 5 seniors who will be presenting theses in poetry are Jeanette Beebe, Molly Bolten, Matthew Brailas, Casey Brown, Alexander Moss, Molly O’Neill, Bryan Pannill, and Eleanor Wright. William Howard and Patience Haggin will read from their work in translation and Michael Cummings and Caitlin Kossmann will read from their work in screenwriting.
Seniors presenting thesis work in fiction on May 7 are Ruwa Alhayek, Vivienne Chen, Lolita De Palma, Amy Gopinathan, Natasha Japanwala, Jade Jones, Nadirah Mansour, Elizabeth Martin, Rosaria Munda, Thomas Noonan, Daisy Radevsky, Cameron White, and Sarah Wiest.
Graduates of the Program include such well-known writers as Jonathan Ames ’87, Jane Hirshfield ’73, Jodi Picoult ’87, Jonathan Safran Foer ’99, and Monica Youn ’93.
The Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series annually brings a number of distinguished writers to campus to read and discuss their work. Writers who read from their works over the past academic year included Ann Beattie, D. A. Powell, Geoff Dyer, Denise Duhamel, Jamaica Kincaid, Dana Levin, Claire Vaye Watkins, David Ferry, Teju Cole and Richard Blanco. All readings are free and open to the public.