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.
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. The Elliston Poetry Room is located in Suite 646 on the 6th Floor of Langsam Library on the UC Uptown Campus at 2911 Woodside Drive, Cincinnati, OH 45221. Public parking is available in the Woodside Garage beneath Langsam Library, or along Martin Luther King Drive on the north edge of the Uptown Campus. An elevator in Woodside Garage will take you to Floor 4 (ground level) and once inside Langsam Library another elevator can take you to floor 6.
Fall 2026
Visiting Writers Series
Fiction, Nonfiction, Poety Reading
Afsheen Farhadi, Kathleen Spada, and Lisa Low
September 10th, 2026; 5:30 pm EST
Elliston Poetry Room, 646 Langsam Library
Afsheen Farhadi was born in Phoenix, Arizona. He is the author of the novel, FALSE PROPHET (2026, Melville House), and the forthcoming essay collection, THE CREEPS: MEDITATIONS ON HORROR (Fall 2027, University of Iowa Press).
His short fiction and essays have appeared in Ploughshares, The Georgia Review, Conjunctions, The Southern Review, Colorado Review, Catapult, Bright Lights Film Journal, and elsewhere. He has a PhD in creative writing from the University of Cincinnati, where he was a Provost Graduate Fellow, and served as the inaugural Hughes Fellow in Creative Writing, Prose at Southern Methodist University. He is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Kathleen Spada writes at the intersection of memory, place, and the stories families inherit. Her work explores how forgotten lives, hidden histories, and the landscapes we inhabit continue to shape who we become.
She is the author of WARD: A Memoir of Ghosts, Grandmothers, and Little Girls Who Disappear, a literary memoir born from the discovery that her mother had been sold as a child and raised under a false identity. What began as a search for historical truth became a journey through archives, forgotten places, family silence, and the enduring presence of women whose stories refused to disappear.
Kathleen holds a PhD in Literary Nonfiction and Composition/Rhetoric from the University of Cincinnati. Her research has been supported by fellowships and awards, including the PEO Scholar's Award. She teaches writing and directs the Writing Center at Northern Kentucky University, where she helps writers discover the stories only they can tell.
She lives in Kentucky and is currently at work on her second book, ESTHER, which continues the investigation begun in WARD by asking not simply what happened—but why.
Lisa Low is the author of Replica (University of Wisconsin Press, 2026) and the chapbook Crown for the Girl Inside (YesYes Books, 2023). She is the recipient of a 2023 Pushcart Prize and the 2020 Gulf Coast Nonfiction Prize, and her poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Ecotone, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. Originally from Maryland, she lives in Chicago.
2025-26
Fred Moten, Marianne Chan, Edgar Garcia, Emma Hudelson, Nathan Hill, Jimin Seo, Maggie Su, Jonathan Mathias Lassiter, Mariah Rigg, Amy Bishop-Wycisk, Danielle Dutton, Joyelle McSweeney, Kathryn Cowles, and Donald Revell
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