Visiting Writers Series
The Creative Writing Program's Visiting Writers Series brings a number of distinguished authors to campus each semester. Visitors often conduct a colloquium with creative writing students in addition to giving a public reading.
Each year, through the Elliston Poet-in-Residence Program, a distinguished poet comes to campus to give public lectures and readings, and to conduct poetry seminars and workshops. The biennial Emerging Fiction Writers Festival brings four writers to campus for two days of readings and panels.
Past visiting writers have included Nicholson Baker, Charles Baxter, Sandra Cisneros, Victoria Chang, Mark Doty, Rita Dove, Alice Fulton, Lauren Groff, Terrance Hayes, Juan Felipe Herrera, Cathy Park Hong, Denis Johnson, Lorrie Moore, Robert Pinsky, Tracy K. Smith, and Colson Whitehead.
Fall 2025
Sponsored by the Elliston Poetry Fund and the Robert and Adele Schiff Fund for Contemporary Fiction
All readings are free and open to the public. Public parking is available in the Woodside Garage beneath Langsam Library on the Uptown Campus, or along Martin Luther King Drive on the north edge of the Uptown campus. Parking map HERE.
Marianne Chan, Emma Hudelson, and Maggie Su
Marianne Chan grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. She is the author of All Heathens (Sarabande Books, 2020), which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award, and Leaving Biddle City (Sarabande Books, 2024). Her poems have appeared in Poetry, Best American Poetry, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Old Dominion University and teaches poetry in the Warren Wilson College MFA program for Writers.
Emma Hudelson is a nonfiction writer from Indiana, where she directs the Writing for Wellness program at Butler University. Sky Watch: Chasing an American Saddlebred Story (University Press of Kentucky, 2024) is her first book. Emma holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. She has one daughter, one husband, three dogs, one cat, and one horse.
Maggie Su is the author of the novel Blob: A Love Story (Harper, 2025). She holds a PhD in fiction from University of Cincinnati and an MFA from Indiana University. Her short fiction has appeared in New England Review, DIAGRAM, TriQuarterly Review, and elsewhere. She lives in South Bend, Indiana, with her partner, daughter, cat, and turtle.
Emily Forland and Nathan Hill
Fiction Reading by Nathan Hill
October 23, 2025; 5:30 pm EST
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
The Writer and the Literary Agent: A Conversation Featuring Emily Forland and Nathan Hill
October 24, 2025; 3:30 pm EST
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Emily Forland has been an agent at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agents in NYC for over ten years; previously, she was an agent at The Wendy Weil Agency. She represents a wide variety of literary fiction and narrative nonfiction, including prize winners and book club picks, and has a special place in her heart for distinctive writing that jumps off the page.
Nathan Hill’s best-selling debut novel, The Nix, was named the #1 book of the year by Audible and Entertainment Weekly, and one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, Slate, and many others. It was the winner of the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction from the Los Angeles Times, and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist for Best Debut. Nathan’s second novel, Wellness, was also a New York Times bestseller and was picked by Oprah Winfrey for her book club. It was selected as one of the best books of the year by NPR, Amazon, Audible, The Times, and others. His books have been published worldwide in more than two dozen languages. In France, Wellness was the winner of the prestigious Grand Prix of American Literature, as well as the Book of the Year prize from the Deauville Film Festival.
Jimin Seo
Poetry Reading
November 6, 2025; 5:30 pm EST
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Jimin Seo was born in Seoul, Korea and immigrated to the US to join his family at the age of eight. He is the author of OSSIA, winner of The Changes Book Prize, and the forthcoming chapbook A-1982. He is the recipient of Poetry Society of America's Norma Farber First Book Award, selected by Phillip B. Williams. His poems can be found in Action Fokus, The Canary, LitHub, Chicago Review, mercury firs, and The Bronx Museum. His most recent projects were Poems of Consumption with H Sinno at the Barbican Centre in London, and a site activation for salazarsequeromedina's Open Pavilion at the 4th Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism.
2024-25
Julie Carr, Adrienne Celt, Lydi Conklin, Gillian Conoley, JJJJJerome Ellis, Ananda Lima, Lily Meyer, Diana Khoi Nguyen, Dawn Lundy Martin, Sarah Rose Nordgren, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Kirstin Valdez Quade, and Adam Ehrlich Sachs
2023-24
Rosa Alcalá, Anthony Cody, Danielle Cadena Deulen, Sidik Fofana, Douglas Kearney, Kristi Maxwell, Robin McLean, Katie Peterson, Molly Reid, Chet'la Sebree, and Emily Jungmin Yoon
2022-23
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Jennifer Elise Foerster, Luke Geddes, Gwen E. Kirby, Johannes Göransson, Allegra Hyde, Sara Eliza Johnson, Yalie Saweda Kamara. Brenda Peynado, Liv Stratman, Brian Teare, and Bess Winter
2021-22
Heid E. Erdrich, Donika Kelly, Ginger Ko, Poupeh Missaghi, Hoa Nguyen, Craig Santos Perez, Raquel Salas Rivera, Divya Victor
2020-21
Tyehimba Jess served as Elliston Poet-in-Residence. All other events were cancelled due to COVID.
2019-20
Don Bogen, Brian Brodeur, Ross Gay, Lillian Li, Maria Massie, Hannah Pittard, Moriel Rothman-Zecher, Natalie Scenters-Zapico, and Sarah Anne Strickley
2018-19
Xhenet Aliu, Jamel Brinkley, Brock Clarke, Sloane Crosley, Blas Falconer, Ishion Hutchinson, Uzodinma Iweala, Katie Kitamura, Stephen Kuusisto, Brendan Mathews, Timothy O’Keefe, Mary Ruefle, Joan Silber, Jillian Weise, and Kevin Wilson
2017-18
Brit Bennett, Victoria Chang, Allison Pitinii Davis, Erica Dawson, Kathy Fagan, Charley Henley, Juan Felipe Herrera, T. R. Hummer, Holly Goddard Jones, David Lazar, Karan Mahajan, Amit Majmudar, and Anne Valente
2016-17
Michelle Y. Burke, Sandra Cisneros, Sarah Domet, Denise Duhamel, Catherine Lacey, Ada Limon, Elizabeth McKenzie, Nancy Reisman, Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, A. E. Stallings, and Jung Yun
2015-16
Becky Adnot-Haynes, Paul Beatty, Tom Drury, Claudia Keelan, Rebecca Lindenberg, Maurice Manning, Lee Martin, James McMichael, Ander Monson, Tomas Q. Morin, Jenny Offill, Carl Phillips, Julie Schumacher, and Lisa Williams
2014-15
Dean Bakopoulos, Marianne Boruch, Amity Gaige, Michael Knight, Ted Kooser, Sonja Livingston, Jamaal May, Claire Messud, Alissa Nutting, Ed Park, Roger Reeves, Nelly Reifler, and Mary Szybist
2013-14
Sarah Arvio, Jami Attenberg, Joseph Campana, Marisa Crawford, Denise Duhamel, Yona Harvey, Cathy Park Hong, Shara Lessley, Dana Levin, Colum McCann, Erin McGraw, Collier Nogues, Jack Pendarvis, Jamie Quatro, Nathaniel Perry, Marcus Wicker, and C. K. Williams
2012-13
Charles Baxter, Matt Bell, Jedediah Berry, Jennifer Clarvoe, Ron Currie, Jr., Claudia Emerson, Danielle Evans, Lauren Groff, Caitlin Horrocks, Julia Johnson, James Longenbach, Ben Loory, Gregory Orr, Steve Scafidi, and Tracy K. Smith
2011-12
Cynthia Arrieu-King, Mark Doty, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Terrance Hayes, Linda Hogan, Gary Leising, Brian Leung, Sinead Morrissey, Meghan O'Rourke, Kelcey Parker, Sarah Perrier, Martha Southgate, Anne Stevenson, Colson Whitehead, Caki Wilkinson, and Carolyne Wright