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.

Peter Gizzi (Poet)

Peter Gizzi is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently, Archeophonics, In Defense of Nothing: Selected Poems 1987-2011, and Threshold Songs. He has also published several limited-edition chapbooks, folios, and artist books. His honors include the Lavan Younger Poet Award from the Academy of American Poets, and fellowships in poetry from The Fund for Poetry, The Rex Foundation, The Howard Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and The Judith E. Wilson Visiting Fellowship in Poetry at Cambridge University. Archeophonics was just long-listed for the National Book Award.

Claudia Rankine (Poet)

Tuesday, October 11, 2016
6:30 p.m.
O’Donnell Auditorium

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely; two plays including Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue; numerous video collaborations, and is the editor of several anthologies including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. For Citizen, Rankine won the Forward Prize for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry (Citizen was also nominated in the criticism category, making it the first book in the award’s history to be a double nominee), the Los Angeles Times Book Award, the PEN Open Book Award, and the NAACP Image Award. A finalist for the National Book Award, Citizen also holds the distinction of being the only poetry book to be a New York Times bestseller in the nonfiction category. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts. She lives in New York City and teaches at Yale University as the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry.

Lucy Ives (Poet)

Thursday, November 17, 2016
6:30 p.m.
Elder Gallery

Lucy Ives is the author of five books of poetry and prose, most recently The Hermit (Song Cave, 2016), a collection of aphorisms and extremely short stories. Her criticism has appeared in numerous publications, including Artforum, newyorker.com, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. In 2017, Penguin Press will release her first full-length novel, Impossible Views of the World.

Past Visiting Writers