Celebrating 60 Years, MFA for Poets and Writers Announces Fall ‘23 Visiting Writers Series Showcasing Program Alumni
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The MFA for Poets and Writers program has announced the Fall ‘23 Visiting Writers Series, four events over the coming weeks that celebrate MFA’s 60th anniversary by featuring MFA alumni Gabriel Bump, Dorothea Lasky, Andrea Lawlor and Lisa Olstein. The readings, which all start at 6 p.m. in the Great Hall of Old Chapel, are free and open to the public.
As part of the year-long 60th anniversary celebration, the MFA will also feature alumni readers at the annual Juniper Literary Festival scheduled for March 22-23, 2024 at the Old Chapel. Festival readers and events to be announced later this year.
The nationally renowned Visiting Writers Series at UMass Amherst presents emerging and established writers of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. The Series is sponsored by the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative, and made possible by support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the University of Massachusetts Arts Council, and the English Department.
Lisa Olstein – Thurs., Sept. 28
Lisa Olstein is the author of five poetry collections published by Copper Canyon Press: “Radio Crackling, Radio Gone” (2006), “Lost Alphabet” (2009), “Little Stranger” (2013), “Late Empire” (2017) and “Dream Apartment” (2023). She has also published two books of nonfiction: “Pain Studies” (Bellevue Literary Press, 2020), a book-length lyric essay on the intersection of pain, perception, and language, and “Climate” (Essay Press, 2022), an exchange of epistolary essays co-written with Julie Carr. Olstein’s honors include a John S. Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, Pushcart Prize, Lannan Writing Residency, Hayden Carruth Award, Writers League of Texas Discovery Book Award and Sustainable Arts Foundation award. She is the Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches in the New Writers Project and Michener Center for Writers MFA programs. She is also the lyricist for the rock band Cold Satellite and curates an interview series with poets about their new books for Tupelo Quarterly.
Dorothea Lasky – Thurs., Oct. 19
Dorothea Lasky is the author of seven books of poetry and prose, including “The Shining” (Wave Books, 2023) and “Animal” (Wave Books, 2019). She is also the editor of “Essays” (Essay Press, 2023) and co-editor of “Open the Door: How to Excite Young People About Poetry” (McSweeney's, 2013). Currently, she lives in New York City and teaches poetry at Columbia University School of the Arts.
Andrea Lawlor – Fri., Nov. 3
Andrea Lawlor teaches writing at Mount Holyoke College, is the recipient of a 2020 Whiting Award for Fiction, and has been awarded fellowships by Lambda Literary and Radar Labs. Their publications include a chapbook, “Position Papers” (Factory Hollow Press, 2016), and a novel, “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,” a 2018 finalist for the Lambda Literary and CLMP Firecracker Awards. “Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl,” originally published by Rescue Press in 2017, is out now from Vintage/Knopf (US) and Picador (UK & Ireland).
Gabriel Bump – Fri., Nov. 17
Gabriel Bump grew up in South Shore, Chicago and received his MFA in fiction from UMass Amherst. His debut novel, “Everywhere You Don't Belong,” was a New York Times Notable Book of 2020 and has won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award for Fiction, the Heartland Booksellers Award for Fiction and the Black Caucus of the American Library Association's First Novelist Award. Bump teaches at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.