There are several upcoming creative writing events this spring here at West Virginia University! Keep reading and save these dates to your calendars. All of these events are free and open to the public!
Kiki Petrosino is the Sturm Writer-in-Residence for the 2023-2024 school year! She will be leading an intensive poetry workshop the first week of March for participants in the Sturm Workshop, but she will also be reading her work on Monday, March 4, at 7:30 p.m. in E. Moore Hall on WVU's campus. This will be a moving night of readings you won't want to miss!
"In her new collection White Blood, Kiki Petrosino concludes the poem “Instructions for Time Travel” with the lines “the dead are always saying / what they always say: / Write about me.” The dead are present throughout this superb book, Petrosino’s fourth, whether they are ancestors whose lives she has researched, the ghosts of Sally Hemmings and the many other slaves from Thomas Jefferson’s plantation, or the writers preceding her whose echoes can be heard throughout White Blood. Petrosino shows impressive range, including stand-alone and blackout poems and even a double crown of modified sonnets. Regardless of form, she depicts the complexity of race relations and racial identity in Virginia from Jefferson’s time to the contemporary moment..." --Southern Review of Books (https://southernreviewofbooks.com/2020/06/09/white-blood-kiki-petrosino-review/)
Kiki Petrosino is the author of White Blood: a Lyric of Virginia (2020) and three other poetry books, all from Sarabande. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her memoir, Bright, was released by Sarabande in 2022. She directs the Creative Writing Program at the University of Virginia, where she is a Professor of Poetry. Petrosino is the recipient of a DeWitt Wallace/Readers Digest fellowship from MacDowell artist residency, a Pushcart Prize, a Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, the UNT Rilke Prize, and the Spalding Prize, among other honors. https://www.kikipetrosino.com/
Tuesday, March 26th, 7:00-9:00 p.m., 123 Pleasant Street: Sigma Tau Delta Poetry Slam/MFA@123 Event
(MFA@123 participants from January 2024, middle/back row left to right: Brent Cronin, 2nd year creative nonfiction; Pilar Randolph, 2nd year poetry; Sam Stebbins, 2nd year poetry; Kelly Ward, 2nd year fiction; Oliver Brown, 1st year creative nonfiction; Elise Zukowski, 2nd year fiction; Ola El-Wassify, 3rd year poetry; Ben Clabault, 2nd year fiction; Ella Wisniewski, 1st year poetry; Camille Gazoul, 1st year fiction. Front row: Jonah Stokes, 3rd year poetry; Emma Merrick, 3rd year fiction)
Come out to 123 Pleasant Street on Tuesday, March 26th at 7:00 p.m. and see our undergraduate and graduate writers on the main stage at this special event! The English Honors Society, Sigma Tau Delta, will be hosting their annual Poetry Slam contest starting at 7:00 p.m., with MFA students and other guests in the crowd judging the winners for prizes. Afterwards, the MFA students will take the stage with powerful readings from their theses and other writing projects, and the mic will be available for other writers in the community to participate as well! This event is completely free and open to the public, so make plans to drop by and support our writers!
Thursday, April 4, 7:30 p.m., Milano Reading Room (downtown library): Poet and WVU Professor Amy Alvarez will read.
WVU English professor Amy M. Alvarez will be reading from her newest poetry collection, Makeshift Altar, on Thursday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. in the Milano Reading Room of the downtown university library. This event is free and open to the public!
"These poems stand up straight and sing their love loud then bow their heads low to lament and mourn and remember Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Jennifer Laude. From Monongahela Means Falling to Fly to the perfectly executed Sometimes, Alvarez offers up a masterclass on form and function. This poet and these poems are just what America needs right now!" --Frank X Walker, author of Buffalo Dance
Amy M. Alvarez is the author of the poetry collection Makeshift Altar (2024) and the co-editor of Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (2023). Alvarez was selected as one of 2022’s Best New Poets, and her poetry has appeared in Ploughshares, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Poetry Foundation, Colorado Review, and elsewhere. She has been awarded fellowships from CantoMundo, VONA, Macondo, VCCA, and the Furious Flower Poetry Center. In 2022, she was inducted as an Affrilachian Poet. Amy was born in New York City to Jamaican and Puerto Rican parents. She currently lives and teaches in West Virginia.
Thursday, April 18, 7:30 p.m., Colson Hall room 130: Undergraduate students published in Calliope, WVU’s undergraduate literary magazine, will read their work.
(Calliope staff and contributors from the 2022-2023 academic year)
Make plans to drop by Colson Hall 130 on Thursday, April 18 at 7:30 p.m. for a night of readings by the contributors featured in the spring 2024 issue of WVU's undergraduate literary magazine, Calliope.
Thursday, April 25, 7:30 p.m., Milano Reading Room (downtown library): MFA students will give their graduation reading.
(Class of 2023 MFA graduates, left to right: Anna Schles, fiction; MaryElizabeth Koepele, poetry; Leslie Wilber, fiction; Liam Wholihan, poetry; Grace Smith, poetry; Ashley Preece, poetry)
Please make plans to drop by the Milano Reading Room in the downtown university library on Thursday, April 25 at 7:30 p.m. to witness our 3rd year MFA students at their graduation reading! Each of the 3rd year MFAs will be reading excerpts from the theses they have been working on during the last three years, and it will be a night you won't want to miss!
Stay tuned for more news and events about the creative writing program at WVU!