WRITERS AT WORK

Alongside the Lighthouse Reading Series, we host the Writers at Work Colloquium, a program generously supported by the NEOMFA and organized by associate director Hilary Plum. We usually offer four to six Writers at Work events per year, each featuring one or two visiting writers, editors, and/or translators. These events take the form of an hour-long Q&A in which undergraduate and graduate students come with questions and join a conversation moderated by Hilary Plum or another member of the Poetry Center staff.

The colloquium provides students opportunities to hear from visiting writers about their experiences in editing, publishing, arts administration, journalism, translation, teaching, and/or community programming, offering an expansive definition of literary work and where it takes place. It aims to help students prepare to publish their own work, to participate in diverse forms of contemporary publishing and literary programming, and to learn about opportunities outside the academy and the many forms a “writing life” may take. We hope that through this program students may encounter a range of engaged literary workers, from many backgrounds and working across many aesthetics and institutional settings, as possible inspirations for their own future endeavors and as a form of professional development.

Writers at Work events have occurred both in person and via Zoom. Events have featured: Sam Allard, Gabriel Blackwell, Brian Blanchfield, Conor Bracken, Caren Beilin, Danny Caine, Christopher Dum, Shelley Feller, Michelle Gil-Montero, Nicholas Gulig, Nia Hampton, Kamden Hilliard, Noor Hindi, Cyrée Jarelle Johnson, Jason Koo, Kevin Latimer, Farid Matuk, Philip Metres, Anne Lesley Selcer, Brandon Shimoda, Shaelyn Smith, Joseph Earl Thomas, Lindsay Turner, Michael Joseph Walsh, and Laura Maylene Walter.