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Great Writers, Great Readings Series
Fall 2017
14th Annual Great Writers, Great Readings Series
Lily King and Elisabeth Schmitz
September 27
6:30 p.m.
Claudia Rankine
October 24
6:30 p.m.
John McPhee
November 15
11:15 a.m.
Past Guest Authors
Fall 2016-Spring 2017: Essayist, memoirist, poet and novelist Phillip Lopate, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri, poet Miguel-Angel Zapata, novelist Álvaro Enrigue, and poet and essayist Lia Purpura, poet A. Van Jordan, and bestselling author Susan Orlean.
Fall 2015-Spring 2016: Poet Rowan Ricardo Phillips; author and short story writer Karen Russell, whose debut novel, Swamplandia, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; novelist/biographer Julia Markus; novelist Emily St. John Mandel, poet Laurie Sheck, playwright Amy Herzog, and novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro.
Fall 2014-Spring 2015: Former poet laureate of Maryland Michael Collier; Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jeffrey K. Eugenides; Kirkus Outstanding Debut Book Award winner Belinda McKeon; author and New Yorker staff writer D.T. Max; Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes; and poet and children's book author Elizabeth Spires
Fall 2013-Spring 2014: former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize-winner Philip Levine (September 25), Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan (November 4); National Book Critics' Circle Award-winner Anne Fadiman (February 26); playwright Annie Baker (April 2); award-winning poet Phillis Levin (April 23). Additionally, a special reading of works by students in Hofstra's M.F.A. in Creative Writing (May 7).
Fall 2012-Spring 2013: Mark Strand, Colum McCann, Vivian Gornick, Erik Brogger and Marilyn Nelson.
Fall 2011-Spring 2012: John Edgar Wideman, Gerald Stern, Alice McDermott, Tom Sleigh, and David Lindsay-Abaire
Fall 2010 to Spring 2011: Tomaž Šalamun, Stephen Dunn, Thomas Lynch, Amy Hempel, Martha McPhee, Christopher Durang
Fall 2009 to Spring 2010: Patricia Hampl, Frank Bidart, Craig Lucas, Mona Simpson and Rosanna Warren
Fall 2008 to Spring 2009: Ann Beattie, Molly Peacock, Deborah Eisenberg, Paul Muldoon and Sarah Ruhl
Fall 2007 to Spring 2008: Eavan Boland, Antonio Cisneros, Kiran Desai, Edmund White, Jonathan Letham and Lynn Nottage
Fall 2006 to Spring 2007: John McPhee, Sharon Olds, Terrance Hayes, Richard Greenberg and Lorrie Moore.
Fall 2005 to Spring 2006: Charles Simic, Haruki Murakami, Donald Margulies, Jean Valentine, Edward P. Jones and Jonathan Franzen.
Fall 2004 to Spring 2005: Jamaica Kincaid, Louise Glück, Cynthia Ozick, Kenneth Lonergan, Vivian Gornick and William S. Merwin.
Great Writers, Great Readings was launched by Hofstra University in recognition of the importance of writing and literature in a liberal arts education. In addition to a baccalaureate degree in English and American Literature, creative writing, and publishing, Hofstra currently offers an MFA in Creative Writing. The MFA faculty currently includes director J. Stephen Russell, authors Julia Markus and Kelly McMasters, and two Guggenheim Fellows: novelist Martha McPhee and poet Phillis Levin.
Each Great Writers, Great Readings event brings a notable author to campus to meet with creative writing students for a short workshop and question/answer session. The author also conducts a reading and book signing that is open to the public. Sometimes the authors use this forum as an opportunity to introduce new, unpublished works.