Creative Writing Program at Penn State

Mary Gaitskill is the author of the novels Two Girls, Fat and Thin, Veronica, and The Mare.  She has also written three story collections: Bad Behavior, Because They Wanted To, and Don't Cry.  Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, Best American Short Stories, and The O. Henry Prize Stories.  … Continue reading Mary Gaitskill Reading, Fisher Family Writer in Residence →

Gabeba Baderoon is the author of several poetry collections including A Hundred Silences, which was a finalist for the University of Johannesburg Prize and the Olive Schreiner Award, The Dream in the Next Body, and Silence Before Speaking. She received the DaimlerChrysler Award for South African Poetry, and is currently an associate professor of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and … Continue reading Gabeba Baderoon Reading, Art of Poetry Series →

Sunil Yapa’s first novel Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist (2016) found its way onto many “best” lists, including  Time Magazine’s Best Books of the Year, Amazon Best Books of the Year, Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers , and American Booksellers January 2016 Indie Next Great Reads. The biracial son of … Continue reading Sunil Yapa Reading, Rolling Reading Series →

Four Pennsylvania poets have been chosen to represent the Pennsylvania Center for the Book’s 2018 Public Poetry Poster series. Jen Ashburn, Thomas Devaney, Dawn Lundy Martin and Marci Nelligan were selected to read their work as part of “An Evening of Pennsylvania Poets: Readings in Celebration of the Public Poetry Project” at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, March … Continue reading An Evening of Pennsylvania Poets: Readings in Celebration of the Public Poetry Project →

Jillian Cantor earned a BA in English from Penn State University and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She is the author of award-winning novels for teens and adults, including, most recently, the critically acclaimed The Lost Letter and Margot, which was a Library Reads pick. Born and raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, Cantor currently lives in … Continue reading Jillian Cantor Reading, Rolling Reading Series →

Sara J. Grossman is a visiting fellow at the Center for Humanities and Information at Pennsylvania State University. Her poems and essays have been published in Verse Daily, Cincinnati Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and American Literature, and her first book of poems is forthcoming from New Issues Poetry & Prose in 2018.

Plastics@thePalmer Entangled Conversation: Thoughts on Styrofoam: A Reading Evelyn Reilly, New York-based poet and author of Styrofoam (2009) and Apocalypso(2012) Co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute, Sustainability Institute, Department of English, and the Friends of the Palmer Museum of Art.