Creative Writing Program to host a slate of readings and discussions this fall
The Fall 2026 lineup includes novelists, a poet and literary critic, and an Iranian translator
Harpur College’s Creative Writing program has an exciting series of events lined up for the fall semester, including a multi-day visit by an influential poet, literary critic, and Harvard professor whose class on Taylor Swift went viral.
The semester kicks off with a welcome-back mixer for the campus creative writing community from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 10 in the Jay S. and Jeanne Benet Alumni Lounge, located in Old O’Connor Hall. Undergraduate and graduate students are welcome to meet and mingle while learning about the undergraduate literary journal Triple Cities and other literary organizations on campus.
The Distinguished Writers Series kicks off the semester on Sept. 17 with Alexandra Kleeman, an associate professor of English at Cornell University who writes speculative fiction addressing climate change; the event, co-sponsored by the Department of Environment and Sustainability, runs from 6 to 8 p.m. in the Old O’Connor Hall Alumni Lounge. Kleeman is the author of the novel Something New Under the Sun; Intimations, a short story collection; and the novel You Too Can Have A Body Like Mine, which was awarded the 2016 Bard Fiction Prize and was a New York Times Editor’s Choice.
The Distinguished Writers series returns Oct. 1 with poet, literary critic, and Harvard English Professor Stephanie Burt, the author of numerous books, including Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift and the poetry collection We Are Mermaids.
In addition to her talk from 6 to 8 p.m. Oct. 1 in the Old Chaplain Atrium, Burt will talk about her anthology Super Gay Poems from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Q Center. She’ll also take part in English Department events during her visit, including a generative poetry workshop and a talk about her work with the graduate students who run the Journal of Taylor Swift Studies.
On Oct. 29, the Creative Writing Program welcomes alumna Nicole Santalucia ’02, PhD ’14, for the Alumni Reading Series, which runs from 6 to 8 p.m. in Old O’Connor Hall. An English professor at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, Santalucia is the author of the new poetry collection Lesbian Dinosaurs/Dinosaur Lesbians; her other collections include The Book of Dirt, Spoiled Meat, and Because I Did Not Die.
The Creative Writing Program and the Translation Research and Instruction Program (TRIP) are teaming up on Nov. 4 for an evening with novelist and Binghamton University Assistant Professor of English Amir Ahmadi Arian and translator Azadeh Eriss.
Eriss, a TRIP doctoral student, will read from her translation of Ahmadi Arian’s novel, That Mid-December Day, originally written in Persian and banned for years in his native Iran; the two will then discuss the translation process and craft of fiction. The event runs from 4 to 6 p.m. in Old O’Connor Hall’s Alumni Lounge.
There’s also the opportunity to support student writers during the Common Ground Reading series, scheduled from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Sept. 18, Oct. 23, and Nov. 20 in the Old O’Connor Hall Alumni Lounge. Both undergraduate and graduate student writers will give live readings of their work.
“The Creative Writing Program is excited to support such a wide variety of literary voices on campus this semester,” said English Professor Leslie Heywood, the program director. “These writers interrogate the most pressing questions of our times, which are relevant to the entire campus community—about environmental sustainability, international politics, social identity, and our relationship to pop culture. We hope to see big crowds to support these amazing authors.”