Winter 2022 Virtual Writers Reading Series
Vermont Business Magazine From January 6 - 14, critically acclaimed, award-winning authors and faculty of the Bennington Writing Seminars will host Writers Reading, an evening reading series during the MFA program's winter residency, which is being conducted remotely this term.
All readings are free, open to the public, and will take place virtually via Zoom.
On Thurs. January 6 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Stuart Nadler and Monica Ferrell. Nadler’s first novel Wise Men was named a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection. His story collection, The Book of Life was a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. His most recent novel, The Inseparables was named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus. Ferrell is the author of three books of fiction and poetry, most recently the collection You Darling Thing, a finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Award and Believer Book Award in Poetry. Her novel The Answer Is Always Yes was named one of Booklist's Top Ten Debut Novels of the Year.
On Fri. January 7 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Deirdre McNamer and David Gates. McNamer’s most recent novel, Aviary, was published in April by Milkweed Editions. She is the author of four previous novels: Rima in the Weeds, One Sweet Quarrel, My Russian, and Red Rover, which was named to the Best Books of 2007 lists of Artforum, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. Gates is the author of the novels Jernigan and Preston Falls, and the story collections The Wonders of the Visible World and A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me. He was a staff writer for Newsweek for many years. He has won the Guggenheim fellowship, and his books have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.
On Sat. January 8 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Alice Mattison and Derek Palacio. Mattison’s most recent novel is Conscience, which is now available in paperback. She is also the author of The Kite and the String: How to Write with Spontaneity and Control—and Live to Tell the Tale. Several of her previous novels and story collections have been New York Times Notable Books or Editors’ Choices. Palacio is the author of the novella How to Shake the Other Man and the novel The Mortifications. His work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Witness, Story Quarterly, and elsewhere.
On Sun. January 9 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Sigrid Nunez and Carmen Giménez Smith. Nunez has published eight novels, including The Friend, winner of the 2018 National Book Award, and, most recently, What Are You Going Through. She is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. Giménez Smith is the author of a memoir and numerous poetry collections, including Be Recorder, a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry. She was awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship Prize in 2020.
On Mon. January 10 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Eula Biss and Mark Wunderlich. Biss is the author of four books, most recently Having and Being Had. Her book On Immunity was named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review, and Notes from No Man’s Land won the National Book Critics Circle award for criticism in 2009. Wunderlich is the author of four books of poetry, the most recent of which is God of Nothingness, published by Graywolf Press in 2021. His other books include The Earth Avails, which received the Rilke Prize, Voluntary Servitude, and The Anchorage, which received the Lambda Literary Award. He is the director of the Bennington Writing Seminars.
On Wed. January 12 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Clifford Thompson and Craig Morgan Teicher. Thompson’s latest book is What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues, which was selected by Time magazine as one of the “Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2019.” He is the writer and illustrator of the graphic novel-in-progress Big Man and the Little Men, forthcoming from Other Press. Morgan Teicher is the author of four books of poetry, most recently Welcome to Sonnetville, New Jersey and The Trembling Answers, which won the 2017 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He is the author of the essay collection We Begin in Gladness: How Poets Progress.
On Thurs. January 13 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Douglas Bauer and Jill McCorkle. Bauer’s novels are The Book of Famous Iowans; The Very Air; and Dexterity. He has published three works of nonfiction: Prairie City, Iowa; The Stuff of Fiction; and What Happens Next?: Matters of Life and Death, which won the 2014 PEN/New England Book Award in Nonfiction. McCorkle is the author of eleven books—four story collections and seven novels—five of which have been selected as New York Times Notable Books. Her latest novel, Hieroglyphics was published in the summer of 2020.
On Fri. January 14 at 7:00 PM, Writers Reading welcomes Marie Mutsuki Mockett and Diane Seuss. Mutsuki Mockett’s newest book, American Harvest: God, Country and Farming in the Heartland was a finalist for the Lukas Prize, awarded by Columbia and Harvard University’s Schools of Journalism. She is also the author of a novel, Picking Bones from Ash, and a memoir, Where the Dead Pause, and the Japanese Say Goodbye, which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. Seuss is the author of the poetry collections Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl (2018); Four-Legged Girl (2015), finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Wolf Lake, White Gown Blown Open (2010), winner of the 2009 Juniper Prize for Poetry; and It Blows You Hollow (1998).
Writers Reading is a hallmark series of the Bennington Writing Seminars, a two-year low-residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing program with ten-day residencies in January and June. During the Seminars, students work closely with distinguished and actively publishing faculty, their path determined by the reading discipline as well as the production of original work. The mission of the Seminars is to connect the emerging writer with much of the best that has been done and to cultivate the critical skills that serve the writing as much as the reading.
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About the Bennington Writing Seminars
Steeped in the Bennington College’s literary legacy, Bennington Writing Seminars is consistently named one of the top low-residency Masters of Fine Arts in Writing programs. Founded in 1994, the Seminars was one of the first low-residency graduate writing programs in the country. During this two-year, low-residency program, students commit as much to reading as to writing and conceive reading lists that strengthen and broaden their knowledge. Students perform critical literary analysis and craft bold new works of fiction, nonfiction, or poetry inspired by their discoveries. They finish with a polished thesis and a parting lecture. All this with the expert guidance of authors who, throughout individualized instruction, become familiar with and develop a stake in students’ work.
Stay in touch with the Bennington literary scene, including Bennington Writing Seminars alumni and candidates, via Twitter:
Bennington Writing Seminars: @BennMFA_Writing
The Bennington Review: @BennReview
Robert Frost Stone House Museum and Bennington College: @FrostStoneHouse
Poetry@Bennington: @BenningtonPoet
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