Visiting Writers Series

Nebraska Wesleyan University's Visiting Writers Series brings prominent national and international writers to campus. In addition to giving public readings, our visiting writers meet with students to discuss the craft of writing. The mission of this series remains the promotion of literary experiences with contemporary writers meant to enliven and to educate young writers here at NWU.

All readings are free and open to the public.

 

Ishmael Klein (Poet/Playwright)

Tuesday, February 5, 2019
6 p.m.
Callen Conference Center

Ish Klein's published books are: Consolation and Mirth, Moving Day, and Union! and the chapbook “Every Animal Is Your Mother”. S/he attended the Iowa Writers Workshop for Poetry and Columbia University where she was a student of Kenneth Koch. Her poems have appeared on the Poetry Foundation website, Fence magazine, Epiphany Magazine and Jubilat among others.

Ish is a founding member of the Connecticut River Valley Poets Theater or CRVPT. Her play, “In A Word, Faust” has been performed internationally; it was published by the Cambridge Literary Review. Her play, The Orchids, was a finalist for the Leslie Scalapino Award. She is also the author of the plays The Dee Men, Drummer 41, and The Storm (a play based on the Tempest as told from the point of view of the island). She and her partner Greg Purcell live in Chicago.

 

Julia Whicker (Novelist)

Thursday, February 21, 2019
p.m.
Callen Conference Center

>Julia Whicker is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she won both the Capote Fellowship and the Teaching-Writing Fellowship. She’s had her poetry and essays published in the Iowa Review, Word Riot and The Millions, among others, and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Wonderblood was named one of the best science fiction books for April 2018 by the Washington Post. Julia lives with her husband and daughter in Pennsylvania.

 

Anjali Sachdeva (Fiction Writer)

Wednesday, April 24, 2019
8:30 p.m.
Callen Conference Center

>Anjali Sachdeva’s fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, Yale Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, The Literary Review, and Best American Nonrequired Reading. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and has taught writing at the University of Iowa, Augustana College, Carnegie Mellon University, and the University of Pittsburgh. She also worked for six years at the Creative Nonfiction Foundation, where she was Director of Educational Programs. She has hiked through the backcountry of Canada, Iceland, Kenya, Mexico, and the United States, and spent much of her childhood reading fantasy novels and waiting to be whisked away to an alternate universe. Instead, she lives in Pittsburgh, which is pretty wonderful as far as places in this universe go.

 

Past Visiting Writers

Year	Writers
Fall 2018	Traci Brimhall Lisa Wells Jamel Brinkley
Spring 2018	Carolyn Hembree Sandy Longhorn Julie Schumacher Robyn Schiff Nick Twemlow
Fall 2017	Cole Swensen Carol Guess
Spring 2017	Brenda Shaughnessy Brian Blanchfield
Fall 2016	Peter Gizzi Claudia Rankine Lucy Ives
Spring 2016	Porochista Khakpour Michael Knight Shane McCrae
Fall 2015	Dagoberto Gilb J.D. Schraffenberger Kit Yan
Spring 2015	Sarah Braunstein Erik Campbell Robert Fernandez Mary Hickman Amaud Jamaul Johnson Bradford Tice
Fall 2014	Mark Jay Brewin, Jr. Travis Mossotti David James Poissant Christine Sneed
Spring 2014	Trey Moody Joshua Robbins Mary Helen Stefaniak
Fall 2013	Tricia Currans-Sheehan Jeanne Emmons Kristi Maxwell Bradford Tice Laura van den Berg
Spring 2013	Oni Buchanan Charlotte Pence Adam Prince John Walker Jon Woodward
Fall 2012	Chi Tak Chan Chun Ying Lin Caryl Pagel Lysley Tenorio Stephanie Ye
Spring 2012	Suzanne Buffam Jennifer S. Davis David Philip Mullins Srikanth Reddy
Fall 2011	Margaret Lazarus Dean Hye-Kyung Lee Dorothy Tse Susan Wheeler Yueran Zhang
Spring 2011	Jessica Savitz Willy Vlautin
Fall 2010	Meg Kearney Ed Roberson Robert Wrigley
Spring 2010	Arthur Smith Hannah Tinti
Fall 2009	Marcia Douglas John McManus
Spring 2009	Mary Jo Bang Brian Evenson Sheila Heti Gary Lutz
Fall 2008	Joanna Klink Timothy Liu
Spring 2008	Chris Bachelder William Henry Lewis Ben Marcus Selah Saterstrom
Fall 2007	Erik Campbell Graham Foust Christian Hawkey Harryette Mullen Sawako Nakayasu
Spring 2007	Cary Holladay Josip Novakovich Julie Orringer Bapsi Sidhwa
Fall 2006	Grace Bauer Anthony Hawley Jeffrey McDaniel Robyn Schiff
Spring 2006	Chris Offutt Z.Z. Packer
Fall 2005	John D’Agata Denise Duhamel Dean Young