Welcome to the Creative Writing Reading Series
Each fall and spring semester at Colorado State University, the Department of English welcomes distinguished literary voices to share their work and to engage with the local community. Visiting writers hold audience question-and-answer sessions, book signings, and other outreach activities. The series features Pulitzer Prize winners, U.S. poets laureate, National Book Critics Circle Award winners, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award winners, NAACP Image Award nominees, Oprah’s Book Club selections, National Book Award finalists and recognized voices in young adult literature.
Read more about our special-guest writers for spring 2022 below.
The CSU Creative Writing Reading Series is made possible by the Organization of Graduate Student Writers, the CSU Department of English, the College of Liberal Arts, CSU Libraries, the Lilla B. Morgan Memorial Endowment, the donor sponsor of the Crow-Tremblay Alumni Reading Series and other generous support. Learn about how you can support the series online here.
February 24, 2022
Lauren Groff
Lauren Groff is the award-winning and bestselling author of the celebrated short story collections, Delicate Edible Birds and Florida, a finalist for the National Book Award, as well as four novels: Matrix, The Monsters of Templeton, shortlisted for the Orange Prize for New Writers, Arcadia, winner of the Medici Book Club Prize, and Fates and Furies, a finalist for the National Book Award and Amazon's pick for Best Book of the Year.
March 31, 2022 The Mountain/West Poetry Series
Cynthia Parker-Ohene
Cynthia Parker-Ohene is an abolitionist, cultural worker, and therapist, and holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College of California, where she was the Chester Aaron Scholar for Excellence in Creative Writing. Her recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Black Warrior Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Kweli, and Green Mountain Review, among others, and has been included in the anthologies Black Nature: Four Centuries of African American Nature Poetry and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. She has received fellowships and support from Tin House, Callaloo, the Postgraduate Vermont College of Fine Arts, Juniper, and the Hurston-Wright Foundation.
Kevin Phan
Kevin Phan is the author of Dears, Beloveds. He attended the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan. His poetry has previously appeared in Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, The Cincinnati Review, The Georgia Review, and other journals. He lives in Colorado, and for a living, works with the earth. Photography, biking, cooking, and organic gardening are a few hobbies.
April 14, 2022 Crow-Tremblay Alumni Reading
7:30pm
Lory Student Center, Longs Peak Room
or join via Zoom through this link: https://zoom.us/j/99407255482
THESIS READINGS
LONGS PEAK ROOM AT 7:00PM
Students earning MFAs in Creative Writing from the Department of English read their thesis live in a culminating moment of years of rigorous study.
March 10, 2022
Grace Loveland, Hannah Barnhart, Jonnie Genova, Mike Moening
Tune in via Zoom at: https://zoom.us/webinar/92708108583
April 28, 2022
Angela Sabo, Annmarie Delfino, Ross Reagan,
Sarah Olson
Tune in via Zoom at: https://zoom.us/webinar/97354820741
Special event co-sponsored by Gregory Allicar Museum and the Creative Writing Reading Series:
DEAD AND LOST IN DETROIT: A Graphic Novel by Carl Wilson
Thursday, May 5 at 5:30 in the Organ Recital Hall of the University Center for the Arts
Dead and Lost in Detroit is Carl Wilson’s graphic story, in progress, of a worker’s experience in an auto factory with dangerous working conditions, racism, and a bullying supervisor. Parallel is the tale of his abusive marriage which intensified his job misery. Both threads magnify his sense of being lost in a labyrinth of pain as he obsesses about his failures.
His wife has insisted that he take this job because of his low wages; she resents their poverty and berates him as a failure. In spite of rumors of the horrible working conditions in this industry’s factories, he feels forced to give in.
The exhibition is curated by Mary Crow, Emeritus Professor of English at Colorado State University, poet, and translator, who served as the poet laureate of Colorado for 14 years.
Support for this program is provided by the FUNd endowment at CSU. Additional support for the related exhibition has been generously provided by the FUNd Endowment at CSU, the City of Fort Collins Fort Fund, and Colorado Creative Industries. CCI and its activities are made possible through an annual appropriation from the Colorado General Assembly and federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts.
This exhibition is also made possible in part through a grant from the Lilla B. Morgan Memorial Endowment. This fund works to enhance the cultural development and atmosphere for the arts at Colorado State University and benefits from the generous support of all those who love the arts.
Carl Wilson’s work has been shown in Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Birmingham-Bloomfield Art Center, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Hatch Gallery, ShiftSpace Detroit’s Café, and other venues. He has been awarded commissions by The Kresge Foundation and Calvin College and residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo as well as a Visual Arts Fellowship from The Kresge Foundation.
In addition to four solo exhibitions, his graphics have been included in seven group exhibits, one of them in Saint Etienne, France. He was interviewed for PBS TV and featured in, “20 Detroit Artists You Should Know,” published online by Complex.