November 2024
Friday, 11/1
Saturday, 11/2
Sunday, 11/3
Monday, 11/4
A meeting of the writers house planning committee
5:00 PM in person
Join us for a meeting of the Writers House Planning Committee (also known as "the Hub") — the core group of engaged students, staff, faculty, and volunteers who help make things happen at Writers House. Anyone is welcome to become a Hub member by participating in Hub activities and helping out. Members of the Hub plan programs, share ideas, and discuss upcoming projects.
Tuesday, 11/5
Wednesday, 11/6
A reading by Rae Armantrout
Sussman Poetry Program
6:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Writing for the Poetry Foundation, David Woo says that Rae Armantrout’s recent book Finalists (Wesleyan 2022) “emanates the radiant astonishment of living thought.” Charles Bernstein says, “Her sheer, often hilarious, ingenuity is an aesthetic triumph.” Armantrout’s book, Conjure, was named one of the ten “best books” of 2020 by Library Journal. Her 2018 book, Wobble, was a finalist for the National Book Award that year. Her other books with Wesleyan include Partly: New and Selected Poems, Just Saying, Money Shot and Versed. In 2010 Versed won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and The National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2007 she received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation. Her poems have appeared in many anthologies and journals including Poetry, Conjunctions, Lana Turner, The Nation, The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, Bomb, Harpers, The Paris Review, Postmodern American Poetry: a Norton Anthology, and The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine. Retired from UC San Diego where she was professor of poetry and poetics, she is the current judge of the Yale Younger Poets Prize.
Thursday, 11/7
Don Mee Choi: a reading and conversation
Liu Program
6:00 PM in person
hosted by: Jo Park
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Born in Seoul, South Korea, Don Mee Choi is the author of the KOR-US trilogy: Mirror Nation (Wave Books, 2024), the National Book Award winning collection DMZ Colony (Wave Books, 2020), and Hardly War (Wave Books, 2016). She is a recipient of fellowships from the MacArthur, Guggenheim, Lannan, and Whiting Foundations, as well as the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. Her translation of Kim Hyesoon’s poetry collection, Autobiography of Death (New Directions, 2018), received the 2019 International Griffin Poetry Prize.
Friday, 11/8
Saturday, 11/9
Sunday, 11/10
Monday, 11/11
Tuesday, 11/12
Wednesday, 11/13
Karen Tumulty & Dick Polman in conversation
Povich Journalism Program
12:00 PM in person
rsvp: register here to attend in person
Karen Tumulty is an associate editor and political columnist for the Washington Post. In her previous role as a national political correspondent for the newspaper, she received the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. She joined The Post in 2010 from Time magazine, where she had held the same title. During her more than 15 years at Time, Tumulty wrote or co-wrote more than three dozen cover stories. She also held positions with Time as congressional correspondent and White House correspondent. Before joining Time in 1994, Tumulty spent 14 years at the Los Angeles Times, where she reported on Congress, business, energy and economics from Los Angeles, New York and D.C. Tumulty is a native of San Antonio. She earned a BA in journalism at the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
SPEAKEASY OPEN MIC NIGHT
Poetry, prose, anything goes
7:00 PM in person
Our student-run open mic night welcomes all kinds of readings, performances, spectacles, and happenings. You’ll have three minutes at the podium to perform. Bring your poetry, your guitar, your dance troupe, your award-winning essay, or your flash fiction to share.
Thursday, 11/14
Friday, 11/15
Saturday, 11/16
Sunday, 11/17
Monday, 11/18
Tuesday, 11/19
NOVELIST GARY SHTEYNGART
Friedman Fiction Program
5:00 PM: reception
6:00 PM: reading and conversation
Photo credit: Brigitte Lacombe
Author of the critically acclaimed knockout novels The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, Absurdistan, and Super Sad True Love Story, Russian-born Gary Shteyngart has risen to the top of the fiction world. His latest novel, Our Country Friends, which follows a group of friends isolating together for six months during the pandemic, is a powerful story about friendship. His New York Times bestselling memoir, Little Failure, is a candid, witty, and deeply poignant account of his life so far. He shares his American immigrant experience, moving back and forth through time and memory with self-deprecating humor, moving insights, and literary bravado. Off the page, Shteyngart is a masterful storyteller recounting his life as a Lenin-loving, ratty-fur-overcoat-wearing child to his anxiety-attack-prone twenties in New York. As a speaker, Shteyngart explores what it means to be an immigrant, a son, an American, a grown-up, and a writer. He was named a Granta Best Young American Novelist and a New Yorker “Best Writer Under 40.” For more information, visit www.prhspeakers.com/speaker/gary-shteyngart.