ELIZABETH BENEDICT
Thursday, September 24, 2015, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Elizabeth Benedict is the author of five novels, including the bestseller Almost and the National Book Award finalist Slow Dancing. She is the editor of the anthologies What My Mother Gave Me, a New York Times bestseller; Mentors, Muses & Monsters; and Me, My Hair, and I: Twenty-Seven Women Untangle an Obsession.

VIJAY SESHADRI: The Emily Dickinson Lectureship in American Poetry
Thursday, October 29, 2015, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Vijay Seshadri is the author of three collections of poetry, including 3 Sections, which was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. His other collections include The Long Meadow, which won the James Laughlin Award, and Wild Kingdom. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous literary magazines, newspapers, and anthologies.

***View an interview with Vijay Seshadri, filmed and edited by intern Kate Wright during his visit to Penn State.***

MERRILL GILFILLAN
Thursday, November 12, 2015, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Merrill Gilfillan is the award-winning author of two short story collections, many books of poems, and five essay collections. Much of his work addresses the shifting layers of the American landscape, both human and non-human. After 30 years in Colorado and Montana, he now resides in Asheville, NC.

CHARLOTTE HOLMES
Thursday, January 21, 2016, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Charlotte Holmes is the author of The Grass Labyrinth and Gifts and Other Stories. A long-time teacher of creative writing at Penn State, she has received many awards and honors for her fiction and for her work with students.

ARYN KYLE
Thursday, February 11, 2016, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Aryn Kyle is an award-winning and widely published fiction writer, whose debut novel The God of Animals (2007) was an international bestseller. Her short story collection Boys and Girls Like You and Me was published in 2010, and her new novel, Hinterland, is forthcoming. She lives in New York City.

KATE DANIELS: The Fisher Family Writer-in-Residence
Thursday, March 24, 2016, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Kate Daniels is the author of four collections of poetry, including A Walk in Victoria’s Secret (LSU 2011), her most recent. She is Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at Vanderbilt University. The many recognitions she has received for her poetry include the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2013-14.

TOM WILLIAMS
Thursday, April 7, 2016, 7:30pm, Foster Auditorium
Tom Williams is the author of three books of fiction: The Mimic’s Own Voice, Don’t Start Me Talkin’, and his latest, Among the Wild Mulattos and Other Tales. An associate editor of American Book Review, he also chairs the English Department at Morehead State University in Kentucky.