Readings
The Program in Creative Writing's various readings series bring writers and writing professionals to the Madison campus each semester to read from their work, discuss the writing life, or otherwise engage with our writing community. All readings are free and open to the public.
Over the years writers we have brought to Madison have included Margaret Atwood, Charles Baxter, Ann Beattie, Dean Bakopoulos, Jo Ann Beard, Kevin Brockmeier, Michael Cunningham, David Clewell, Nicholas Delbanco, Carl Djerassi, Charles D'Ambrosio, Junot Diaz, Deborah Eisenberg, Lynn Emanuel, Donald Finkel, Carolyn Forché,Jonathan Franzen, Alice Fulton, Tess Gallagher, Ellen Gilchrist, Albert Goldbarth, Jane Hamilton, Aleksander Hemon, Douglas Kearney, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ted Kooser, Tony Kushner, Ann Lauterbach, Li Young Lee,Peter Matthiessen; Diane Middlebrook, Liesel Mueller, Ed Ochester, Pamela Painter, Marge Piercy, Hermine Pinson, Adrienne Rich, Joyce Carol Oates, George Saunders, Joan Silber, Scott Spencer, Sting (yes, that Sting), Peter Straub, Jean Valentine, Kurt Vonnegut, Keith and Rosmarie Waldrop, Antoine Wilson, and many others.
We also support other campus reading series, such as The Felix Reading Series named for Wisconsin poet Felix Pollak, and run by some of our PhD creative writing minors.
We are especially pleased to support readings by members of our own community. Each fall, we hold our Blue Ox Reading Series, featuring readings by our second-year MFA students (and named after the Paul Bunyan murals in the room where the series originally took place). In the spring, our current Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing fellows share their work.
We also have recently introduced the Glass Bookcase Reading Series in which former Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing fellows return to read from the first books they worked on while in Madison. And every spring the recipients of the University of Wisconsin Press's Brittingham and Pollak Poetry Prize Series read from their winning collections.
Each semester The Program in Creative Writing also invites a distinguished writer to spend several days with our graduate students and Institute fellows. Visiting writers give public readings, interact with members of the Program, and otherwise share their time, work, and expertise with our creative writing community. While classroom events are generally limited to students enrolled in that class, readings by our visiting writers are free and open to the public.
Our visiting writers in fall 2008 were Ann Beattie in fiction and Cornelius Eady in poetry. Our visiting writers in spring 2009 were Lauren Groff and Kevin Brockmeier in fiction and A. Van Jordan in poetry. Poet Briget Pegeen Kelly and fiction writer Janet Burroway will be our guests in fall 2009.
Upcoming Readings
The Creative Writing Program lists its upcoming readings in the events pages of The Isthmus, a free weekly paper widely distributed througout Madison. We also list upcoming readings on our Creative Writing Blog.