Visiting Writers

Fall 2022 Visiting Writers

Tuesday, November 29, 2022 from 4:10-5:10 p.m. in the Benes Rooms in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center

Author of the debut poetry collection Border Vista, which was awarded the 2021 Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize from Persea Books, Anni Liu’s poetry explores familial distance and intimacy, bureaucracy and state-sanctioned violence, racism and whiteness, the land, intimate partner violence, and the “minor feelings” and major joys of being an alien and finding home. Liu earned her BA in Creative Writing with honors from Ohio Wesleyan University and an MFA at Indiana University, where she served as poetry editor of the Indiana Review. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and a book signing.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022 from 4:10 p.m. in the Bayley Room of Beeghly Library

Author of Seed, a poetry collection chosen by award-winning poet Eduardo C. Corral for “The Word Works,” and the chapbook Rain Leaping Up When a Cab Goes Past, published in 2013 in the Editor’s Series at Seven Kitchens Press, David Eye’s poetry has been hailed as “both uncompromising and tender” and “beautiful and bracing,” “[illuminating] how queerness shapes and shelters the self.” Eye has joined the Department of English and the Creative Writing Program at Ohio Wesleyan University as a Visiting Assistant Professor and will read from his work on Wednesday, October 19th at Ohio Wesleyan University. The reading will be followed by a Q&A and book signing.

Spring 2022 Visiting Writers

Tuesday, March 29, 2022 from 4:10 p.m. in the Bayley Room of Beeghly Library

Hailed by critics as a “calculating, improvisatory, essential poet” and as “the
foremost poet-critic of our time,” Charles Bernstein will read from his
acclaimed works on Tuesday, March 29th at Ohio Wesleyan University.
During his visit, Bernstein also will receive an honorary Ohio Wesleyan
Doctor of Literature degree–the university’s highest honor–and participate in
a book signing. The events will tentatively be held in the Bayley Room of
Beeghly Library beginning at 4:10pm. Ohio Wesleyan professor and poet
David Caplan nominated Bernstein for the OWU honorary degree.

Fall 2021 Visiting Writers

Wednesday, September 29, 2021 from 4:30-5:30 p.m. in the Benes Rooms in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center

Torrey Peters is our distinguished 2021-2022 Michael C. Quinn Memorial Fiction Writer. Peters is author of the bestselling novel Detransition, Baby (Random House, 2021), which was longlisted for the Women’s Prize and was a Roxane Gay’s Audacious Book Club Pick. She is also the author of the novellas Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. Peters holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She splits her time between Brooklyn and an off-grid cabin in Vermont.

Wednesday, October 27, 2021 from 4:10-5:10 p.m. in the Bayley Room in Beeghly Library

Professor Mark Allison is our distinguished 2021-2023 Benjamin T. Spencer Lecturer. Mark Allison specializes in the literature and culture of nineteenth-century Britain.  His research interests include utopian literature and theory; socialism, working-class political culture, and Marxism; and the British novel.  His current book project, Imagining Socialism: Aesthetics, Anti-Politics, and Literature, 1817–1917, explores the intersections of socialism and literature in the long nineteenth century, with special emphasis on their shared antipathy to institutional politics.

Tuesday, November 9, 2021 from 4:10-5:10 p.m. in the Bayley Room in Beeghly Library

Please join Professor Amy Butcher and Professor David Caplan for a joint reading and Meet The Creative Writing Faculty at Ohio Wesleyan event.  Both authors will share new work from their recently published books and join in conversation with new and current students about the new Creative Writing curriculum and upcoming opportunities at Ohio Wesleyan University. Amy Butcher is the Director of Creative Writing, an essayist with work in Granta and The New York Times, among others, and the author of two books including, most recently, Mothertrucker. David Caplan is the Charles M. Weis Professor of English and the Associate Director of Creative Writing. His scholarly interests include poetics and contemporary poetry and he is the author of seven books including, most recently, Into My Garden.

Tuesday, December 7, 2021 from 4:10-5:10 p.m. in the Benes Rooms in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center

Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, formerly the Soviet Union, in 1977 and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. He is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf Press) and Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press) and co-editor and co-translated many other books, including Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (Harper Collins) and Dark Elderberry Branch: Poems of Marina Tsvetaeva (Alice James Books). Deaf Republic was The New York Times’ Notable Book for 2019, and was also named Best Book of 2019 by dozens of other publications, including Washington Post, Times Literary Supplement, The Telegraph, Publishers Weekly, The Guardian, Irish Times, Vanity Fair, Lithub, Library Journal, and New Statesman.