Visiting Writers Series empowers student writers
The Fall 2025 Visiting Writers Series kicked off this year in September with a reading from essayist Caroline Crew, who explored themes of nature, travel, memory and nostalgia in a series of thoughtful and lyrical vignettes from her book Other Girls to Burn.
In October, we were honored to welcome Nigerian American fantasy and sci-fi writer Nnedi Okorafor as our Proctor Visiting Writer, in conversation with MU alum Jennifer Maritza McCauley. Nnedi read an excerpt from her most recent novel, The Death of the Author, and spoke about her writing process and the origins of the book, among other topics—including how she would curate her perfect library.
In collaboration with the Asian Affairs Center at MU, we welcomed Nepalese American poet Samyak Shertok this November. During his visit, Shertok performed a series of formally innovative poems from his debut collection, No Rhododendron.
“My intermediate poetry class was lucky enough to have a classroom visit with writer Samyak Shertok.” Graduate student instructor Emma DePanise said. “At the start of class, Samyak was able to get to know each writer in my class through discussing their current writing joys and surprises. Some students spoke with Samyak about developing poem ideas that they have since written and submitted to workshop!”
The Visiting Writers Series empowers student writers to engage with the literary community beyond MU. By inviting celebrated, award-winning authors to perform their work, meet with students, and discuss their writings, our program helps students broaden their aesthetic horizons, demystify the writing life, and benefit from a valued outside perspective.
“We also had the opportunity to look at some of Samyak’s work as a group,” DePanise continued, “with Samyak providing insight into experimenting with form, from a poem written in the form of a driver’s license to play with the ghazal—an invaluable lesson for students!”
Spring 2026 will bring Washington University faculty member Kathryn Davis in February, and poet Alison C. Rollins—winner of the 2025 Maya Angelou Book Award—in April.
A collaboration with the Center for the Humanities through the Veterans Humanities Initiative will also bring about a panel on Women Veterans Voices, which brings together fiction-writer Jillian Danback-McGhan and poet Amber Adams in conversation with Lena S. Andrews, author of the book Valiant Women.
In January, the Creative Writing program will host a fundraiser for the Visiting Writers Series, specifically a new fund to supplement existing support for the VWS called the “Hien and Emily Nguyen Endowment for Creative Writing.”
Anyone interested in supporting this fund is encouraged to visit https://formizzou.missouri.edu/campaigns/63884/donations/new and search for “Hien and Emily Nguyen” in the “Designation” field. Alumni and donors are welcome. Contact Phong Nguyen at (609) 937-4104 if you are interested in receiving an invitation. Seating is limited to fifty.