2010-12 Fiction MFA Meghan O'Gieblyn reads from her award-winning essay,
"Sniffing Glue," at Avol's Books. Photo © Oliver Bendorf, 2011-13 MFA.

Upcoming 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 Program-sponsored readings (in bold text below) are free and open to the public. 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.

Below you'll find a more-or-less complete schedule of upcoming literary events in Madison. You can also subscribe to our Google Calendar (excerpted at left) to see how these events fit into your schedule and to keep constant tabs on what's happening around town on your phone or other device. If you have an event that you would like added to our calendar, please contact the Readings Coordinator, Sean Bishop.

MAY 7, 7:00PM @ GATES OF HEAVEN (302 E GORHAM ST)
     UW-CWP Presents a poetry reading by Seth Abramson, Oliver Bendorf,
     Mark Cayanan, Sarah Crossland, Zaccaria Fulton, Jesse Damiani,
     Hannah Oberman-Breindel, Chloe Krug Benjamin, Sarah Dimick, Vincente Lopez,
     Lewis Freedman, and Valerie Stull

MAY 10, 7:30PM @ H.C. WHITE (600 N PARK) RM 6191
     The Creative Writing Program Presents Mehdi Okasi & Jacques Rancourt

MAY 17, 7:00PM @ CHAZEN MUSEUM OF ART
     The Bridge Poetry Series, featuring Ron Wallace, Matthew Guenette,
     Zaccaria Fulton, Kevin Gonzalez, Timothy Yu, and others

MAY 25, 7:30PM @ THE PROJECT LODGE (817 E JOHNSON)
     Monsters of Poetry Presents Andrew Milward, Nate Brown, and Kevin Gonzalez

The Program in Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has been host to many of the best novelists, essayists, story-writers and poets in the country. In the past four years alone, we've featured writers the likes of Jonis Agee, Ann Beattie, Michael Cunningham, Carl Djerassi, Junot Diaz, Mark Doty, Jonathan Franzen, Lauren Groff, Terrance Hayes, Adam Haslett, and Maurice Manning, and many more, not to mention visiting editors and agents on the lookout for the next generation of American literature.

In the coming months and year, we hope to share the liveliness and vibrancy of Madison with the larger literary community. Check back here for video and audio of our featured readers.