2020-21 Reading Series: Necessary Conversations
Conversations between the finest writers at work today. Available for live online streaming from anywhere.
All events are at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Members of the Tri-Co community: Reserve online for free access to each online event. Visit the Bryn Mawr College Bookshop to purchase books accompanied by a signed bookplate from our authors.
Members of the General Public: Access to each online event requires a book purchase from one of the evening’s authors from the Bryn Mawr College Bookshop. All books are accompanied by a signed bookplate from our authors.
Discussions moderated by Daniel Torday, Airea Dee Matthews, Emma Copley Eisenberg, and Cynthia Dewi Oka. For more information, contact the Arts Office at reservations@brynmawr.edu or 610-526-5300.
May 5, 2021: Natalie Diaz and Kirstin Valdez Quade*
Poet Natalie Diaz is the author of two books of poems, including the acclaimed debut When My Brother Was an Aztec, and Postcolonial Love Poem, her second collection, a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Poetry. The winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Diaz teaches in the Arizona State University M.F.A. program.
Fiction writer Kirstin Valdez Quade is the author of the short story collection Night at the Fiestas, winner of the John Leonard Prize for debut work of fiction and a New York Times notable book. She is an assistant professor of creative writing at Princeton University. Her first novel, The Five Wounds, will be published in April 2021.
Past Events
Oct. 7, 2020: Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Karen Russell
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s debut short story collection, the New York Times bestseller Friday Black, was the most acclaimed book of short fiction of 2018. Adjei-Brenyah’s work has been published in Esquire, Guernica, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. He is the winner of PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.
Karen Russell is one of the most acclaimed short story writers of her generation. Her novel, Swamplandia!, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. A winner of the MacArthur “Genius” Grant, her most recent book is the story collection Orange World.
POSTPONED: Oct. 21, 2020: Frank Bidart and Garth Greenwell*
New date to be announced.
Poet Frank Bidart’s books have been winners of the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. He was co-editor of the Collected Poems of Robert Lowell. His most recent book is Half-Light: Collected Poems 1965-2017.
Fiction writer Garth Greenwell is the author of two books, including What Belongs To You, longlisted for the National Book Award. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Atlantic. His most recent book is Cleanness.
POSTPONED: Nov. 4, 2020: Dan Chiasson and Airea Dee Matthews*
New date to be announced.
Poet Dan Chiasson is the author of six books of poetry, most recently The Math Campers, out in fall 2020 from Knopf. He serves as poetry critic at The New Yorker, and is a professor at Wellesley College.
Airea Dee Matthews' debut poetry collection, Simulacra, was the winner of the 2016 Yale Young Poets Prize, selected by Carl Phillips. A Cave Canem fellow, she is an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College.
Postponed: Nov. 18, 2020: Eula Biss and Sarah M. Broom
New date to be announced.
Eula Biss is one of the most celebrated essayists of her generation. Her book On Immunity was the winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and named one of the New York Times 10 Best Books of 2014. Her newest book, Having and Been Had, is out now from Riverhead Books.
Feb. 24, 2021: Sigrid Nunez and Camille Dungy*
Fiction writer Sigrid Nunez is the author of eight novels and a memoir of her time with Susan Sontag, Sempre Susan. Her novel The Friend was the winner of the 2018 National Book Award for fiction. Her latest book, What Are You Going Through, is out this fall.
Poet Camille Dungy is the author of four books of poetry. Her debut collection of essays, Guidebook to Relative Strangers, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction. She is a professor in the English Department at Colorado State University.
March 10, 2021: Jorie Graham and Rebecca Makkai*
Jorie Graham is, according to the Poetry Foundation, “one of the most celebrated poets of the post-war generation.” She has been the winner of the Pulitzer and Forward Poetry prizes, and she is the first woman to serve as the Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. Her new collection, Runaway, was published last fall.
Short story writer and novelist Rebecca Makkai’s most recent novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. It won the ALA Carnegie Medal, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. The author of three other books of fiction, her stories have been honored by The Best American Short Stories and Selected Shorts series.
*This event has been made possible with the support of the Jane Flanders Fund and the Marianne Moore Fund for the Study of Poetry.
Bryn Mawr College strives to provide equal access to all College-sponsored activities and events. Learn more by reading the College's accessibility policy for events.