Visiting Writers Series

Robyn Schiff is the author of four poetry collections: “Worth” (University of Iowa Press, 2002), “Revolver” (University of Iowa Press, 2008), “A Woman of Property” (Penguin, 2016), and most recently, “Information Desk: An Epic” (Penguin, 2023). A professor at the University of Chicago, Schiff co-edits Canarium Books, an independent small press dedicated to publishing exceptional books of poetry, and was the recipient of the 2023 Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome. Her work has been published in Harper’s, The New Yorker, Yale Review, and elsewhere. She lives in Chicago with her family.

Sally Wen Mao 

Thursday, November 30, 2023, 7 p.m.
*CANCELLED*

Sally Wen Mao is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection “The Kingdom of Surfaces” (Graywolf Press, 2023), and the debut fiction collection “Ninetails” (Penguin Books). She is also the author of two previous poetry collections, “Oculus” (Graywolf Press, 2019), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and “Mad Honey Symposium” (Alice James Books, 2014). The recipient of two Pushcart Prizes and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she was recently a Cullman Fellow at the New York Public Library and a Shearing Fellow at the Black Mountain Institute.

Derrick Austin

Thursday, February 8, 2024, 7 p.m. 
Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom

Derrick Austin is the author of “Tenderness” (BOA Editions, 2021), winner of the 2020 Isabella Gardner Poetry Award, and “Trouble the Water” (BOA Editions, 2016) selected by Mary Szybist for the A. Poulin Jr, Poetry Prize. His first chapbook, “Black Sand,” was published by Foundlings Press in 2022. His debut collection was honored as a finalist for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and the Norma Faber First Book Award. “Tenderness” was a finalist for a Golden Poppy Award, Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, and a Northern California Book Award.

His poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Best American Poetry 2015, The Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day, The Nation, The New Republic, American Poetry Review, Poetry Magazine, New England Review and Image: A Journal of Arts and Religion. He has had poems and essays commissioned by The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The New Museum, Craft Contemporary, The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, LAXART, and The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles.

His honors include fellowships from Cave Canem, the Wisconsin Institute of Creative Writing, and Stanford University. Most recently he was a 2022–2023 Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholar.

March 4–7, 2024: Writing Week with Whitman College Alum-Writers in Fiction/Nonfiction

Jim Whiting
Tuesday, March 5, 2024, TBD (virtual)

Zoe Ballering ’12 & Katey Schultz ’01
Wednesday, March 6, 2024, TBD (in person)

Zoe Ballering ’12 & Katey Schultz ’01
Thursday, March 7, 2024, 7 p.m. (Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom)

Whitman graduate, Zoe Ballering ’12 is a writer and teacher who lives in Portland, Oregon. Her speculative fiction has appeared in Electric Literature’s “Recommended Reading,” “Craft,“ “Hobart” and elsewhere. Her collection of stories—“There Is Only Us”—won the 2022 Katherine Anne Porter Prize in Short Fiction and was released in November 2022.

Her writing is informed by her work in many different worlds: as the program manager for a historic tall ship, the receptionist at a garbage dump, an olive oil saleswoman, a teacher, a radio copywriter, and—currently—as the Assistant Dean of Admission Communication at Reed College.

Whitman graduate Katey Schultz ’01 is the author of “Flashes of War,” which the Daily Beast praised as an “ambitious and fearless” collection, and “Still Come Home,” a novel, both published by Loyola University Maryland. Honors for her work include North Carolina’s Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction, the Linda Flowers Literary Award, Doris Betts Fiction Prize, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year award, gold and silver medals from the Military Writers Society of America, the Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year award, five Pushcart nominations, a nomination to Best American Short Stories, National Indies Excellence recognition, and writing fellowships in eight states. She has taught all over the country—at Interlochen College of Creative Arts, Fishtrap, 49 Alaska Writing Center, StoryStudio Chicago—and her own organization Maximum Impact, among many others. She lives in Celo, North Carolina, and is the founder of Maximum Impact, a transformative mentoring service for creative writers that has been recognized by both CNBC and the What Works Network.

Maggie Nelson

Thursday, April 4, 2024, 7 p.m.
Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom

Maggie Nelson is the author of several acclaimed books of poetry and prose, including the forthcoming collection “Like Love: Essays and Conversations” (2024), the national bestseller “On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint” (2021), the National Book Critics Circle Award winner “The Argonauts” (2015), “The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning” (2011), “Bluets” (2009; named by Bookforum as one of the top 10 best books of the past 20 years), “The Red Parts” (2007), “Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions” (2007), and “Jane: A Murder” (2005). In 2016 she received a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship. She currently teaches at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.