UMass MFA for Poets and Writers Announces Fall ’24 Visiting Writers Series

The UMass MFA for Poets and Writers has announced its annual Visiting Writers Series for Fall 2024, which brings literary artists from around the world to the UMass Amherst campus from September through December. This year's series will feature readings by authors Tongo Eisen-Martin, Hanif Abdurraqib, Rae Armantrout, and Yuri Herrera with translator Lisa Dillman. <_o3a_p>

All readings are free, open to the public and held on their respective dates in the Great Hall of Old Chapel from 6-7:30 p.m.<_o3a_p>

The series, now celebrating its 61st year, is sponsored by the MFA for Poets and Writers and the Juniper Initiative for Literary Arts and Action with support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the University of Massachusetts Arts Council, the Massachusetts Review, and the English department. Additional funding for the Dec. 6 reading featuring Herrera and Dillman is underwritten in part by the Chancellor's Community, Democracy, and Dialogue working group.<_o3a_p>

For more information, contact Ryan Mihaly, MFA program coordinator, at [email protected] or 413-545-8724.

Visiting Writers Series for Fall 2024

Tongo Eisen-Martin, Sept. 19.<_o3a_p>

Tongo Eisen-Martin is the Poet Laureate of San Francisco, Calif. He is the author of "Heaven Is All Goodbyes," which was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize, received the California Book Award for Poetry, an American Book Award, and a PEN Oakland Book Award. He is also the author of "someone's dead already." "Blood on the Fog," his newest collection of poems, was published in the City Lights Pocket Poets Series in September 2021. <_o3a_p>

Eisen-Martin is also an educator and organizer whose work centers on issues of mass incarceration, extrajudicial killings of Black people and human rights. He has taught at detention centers around the country and at the Institute for Research in African-American studies at Columbia University.

<_o3a_p>

Hanif Abdurraqib, Oct. 24.<_o3a_p>

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American and other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, "The Crown Ain't Worth Much," was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry and a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize and nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. His newest book is "There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension" with Random House. Hanif is a graduate of Beechcroft High School.

<_o3a_p>

Rae Armantrout, Nov. 14.<_o3a_p>

Rae Armantrout has 15 previous books including "Versed," which received a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award. Other books include "Finalists," "Conjure" and "Wobble," which was a finalist for a National Book Award. Armantrout is professor emerita of writing at the University of California at San Diego. She has been published in many anthologies, including, The Oxford Book of American Poetry and Scribner's Best American Poetry, and in magazines including Harpers, The New Yorker, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, Scientific American, Chicago Review and the Los Angeles Times Book Review.

<_o3a_p>

Yuri Herrera and Lisa Dillman, Dec. 5<_o3a_p>

Born in Actopan, Mexico, Yuri Herrera is the author of three novels, including "Signs Preceding the End of the World," as well as the collection "Ten Planets," which was a finalist for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize. His first novel, "Trabajos del reino" (in English: "Kingdom Cons") won the Premio Binacional de Novela Joven 2003 and received the "Otras voces, otros ámbitos" prize for the best novel published in Spain in 2008. His second novel, "Señales que precederán al fin del mundo" ("Signs Preceding the End of the World") was a finalist of the Rómulo Gallegos Prize. All of these novels have been translated into English by Lisa Dillman. Herrera teaches at Tulane University in New Orleans.<_o3a_p>

Lisa Dillman has translated a number of Spanish and Latin American writers. Some of her recent translations include "Rain Over Madrid, Such Small Hands" and "The Right Intention" by Andrés Barba and Herrera. She won the 2016 Best Translated Book Award for Herrera's "Signs Preceding the End of the World." She teaches in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Emory University in Atlanta.<_o3a_p>

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.