The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the Department of English and the Creative Writing Program, and is made possible by the generous support of the Carol H. Cline Endowment. Each year, the series brings approximately six to eight nationally-recognized writers to campus to visit classes, host workshops, and read their work. Past visiting writers include National Book Award finalists Charles Baxter and Joan Silber, and Pulitzer Prize winners Philip Schultz and Robert Olen Butler, as well as up-and-coming writers Xhenet Aliu, Kiki Petrosino, Brad Kessler, and Nami Mun.
The VWS often partners with other organizations s on campus or in the community to help support and promote interdisciplinary events with a wide-reaching audience. Past partnerships include the Women's Studies Program, the Women's Center, Rainbow Alliance, the Common Text, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Creative Writing Program chair, Erin Flanagan, says, "In the past few years, we've geared our focus toward writers with one or two books out who need our support as readers, are eager to interact with students, help promote the idea of a literary community, and expose students to the wide range of voices being published today."
So far this year the Visiting Writers Series has hosted a reading by poets Anthony McCann and Catherine Wagner, a WSU Alumni Writers panel in relation to the Common Text, and poet and fiction writer, Mike Young. Next semester, writers Anne Valente (January 21), Ben Stroud (March 18), and Shane McCrae (April TBA) will be visiting classes and giving readings, along with one more writer to be determined. In spring, the Creative Writing Program will also host the second annual Creative Writing Contest for all undergraduate students at Wright State, followed by a reception and a reading by the winners.
Flanagan says, "We see the series as a way to show students that literature isn't just something they read in their classes, but that is alive and well in the contemporary world."
