Campus Stories - Creative Writing Program

Winter quarter 2020 guest artists

The roster of winter quarter guest artists includes talent from around the globe. Melbourne Australia’s Choir of Trinity College performs with the Stanford Chamber Chorale; Chinese dance legend and renowned choreographer Yang Liping presents her reimagined production of Rite of Spring to Memorial Auditorium; Maqueque, a collective of female artists from Cuba led by Canadian Jane Bunnett,…

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Spring quarter 2019 guest artists

Over 30 departments, centers and campus organizations host guest artists each quarter. The Architectural Design Program and the University Architect/Campus Planning and Design Office co-present the annual Architecture & Landscape–Spring Lecture Series, and the theme this year is “Architecture of Humanity.” The series features five designers who believe architecture has a much greater responsibility beyond aesthetics….

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Poet Eavan Boland recites new poem at UN event honoring Irish women’s suffrage

English professor and acclaimed poet EAVAN BOLAND recited a poem at the United Nations headquarters Wednesday, Dec. 5, in celebration of 100 years since the women of Ireland were granted suffrage. Boland, the Bella Mabury and Eloise Mabury Knapp Professor in Humanities and the Melvin and Bill Lane Director of the Creative Writing Program, read an excerpt from…

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Stegner Fellow Jamel Brinkley’s novel named a Finalist for the National Book Award

Jamel Brinkley is a graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He has received fellowships from Kimbilio Fiction, the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, and Stanford University where he is currently a Stegner Fellow. A Lucky Man is his first book. He lives in California.

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Stanford unveils new Presidential Residencies on the Future of the Arts and welcomes international guest artists

Artists from across the globe come to Stanford to perform, create and engage. The 80-plus guest artists visiting campus this fall are hosted by over 20 Stanford departments, centers and programs. Some of the artists will be at Stanford for a single public event and others will stay for an extended visit for deep engagement…

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Poet Eavan Boland elected to the Royal Irish Academy

The Royal Irish Academy elected English professor and acclaimed poet EAVAN BOLAND as an honorary member. Boland, the Bella Mabury and Eloise Mabury Knapp Professor in Humanities and director of the Creative Writing Program, was among 28 new members admitted for “their exceptional contribution to the sciences, humanities and social sciences as well as to public service,”…

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Stanford’s spring quarter guest artists

Guest artists are all over campus this spring. Indie rock band Glass Animals play Stanford Stadium; the open-air literary celebration Stories of Exile, Reckoning and Hope takes place on the main stage in White Plaza; Mina Morita directs Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan in Roble Studio Theater; and Stanford Live’s popular Cabaret series continues in Bing’s cozy…

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Stanford Stegner Fellows lead and influence with words

Imagination can be supported. Hands can be guided, and craft can be improved. The workshop can reveal the best a writer has to offer. Wallace Stegner founded the Stanford Creative Writing Program and Writing Fellowships in 1946. (Image credit: Mary Stegner) These beliefs have been the guiding principles of the Stegner Fellows program since its inception…

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Stanford Professor Chang-rae Lee on “Writing Across and Through Gender” at the Clayman Institute’s Artist’s Salon

How does a writer imbue his characters with a gender, gendered behaviors and attributes, that seem authentic, and not stereotypical, to the reader? How do the social aspects of gender inform the fictional universe of his novel? For award-winning novelist and Stanford professor Chang-rae Lee, the ultimate freedom in writing across and through gender means…

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Stanford lecturer earns fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts recently awarded AUSTIN SMITH, a Jones lecturer in the English Department at Stanford, with a creative writing fellowship. Austin Smith Smith, a former Wallace Stegner fellow, was one of 36 writers nationwide who received the 2018 Creative Writing Fellowship, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. The annual fellowship…

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20.8% of the 2017 MacArthur Fellows were Stanford guest artists within the last year

Stanford congratulates the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” winners who recently spent time on campus engaging with students, faculty and the public. Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY, whose work tells elaborate and delicate stories of her life, was in conversation with Jodi Roberts, the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator for Modern and…

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Fall quarter guest artists

One of the ways that Stanford is creating opportunities for meaningful engagement with the arts for students and the university community is by inviting over 100 artists each year to campus to create, perform and discuss their work. This fall quarter the roster of guest artists includes comedian and political commentator Samantha Bee in conversation…

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On writing and identity: an interview with author and professor Chang-rae Lee

In the fall of 2016, acclaimed author Chang-rae Lee joined Stanford as the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the English Department and Creative Writing Program. He was previously at Princeton University as a creative writing professor and director of their Program in Creative Writing. Lee moved with his family from South Korea…

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Stanford alum’s debut novel gets National Book Critics recognition

The reaction on YAA GYASI‘s Facebook page to the news that her debut novel Homegoing  was the 2016 recipient of the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize was swift: 379 likes; 22 comments; and 19 shares. And that was before dawn. The John Leonard Prize was established to recognize outstanding first books in any…

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The NEA announced that Edgar Kunz, Stegner Fellow in Poetry, is to receive an individual creative writing fellowship

Dec. 13, 2016 — Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Edgar Kunz, a second-year Stegner Fellow in Poetry, is one of 37 writers to receive an FY 2017 individual creative writing fellowship of $25,000. “The NEA has an excellent record of supporting writers who have gone on to have impressive literary careers,”…

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Stanford Students win Creative Program Writing prizes

There is nothing quite like finding your voice as a writer. And getting noticed along the way can help, too. That’s what happened May 26 at the Creative Writing Program’s 2016 Undergraduate Prize Reading, where 14 student winners read from their works in front of faculty, friends and family. In addition to long-standing prizes in…

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