On Tuesday, April 8th, the Lannan Center hosted a reading by award-winning poet Roger Reeves, hosted by Carolyn Forché. Roger Reeves is the author of Dark Days: Fugitive Essays (Graywolf, 2023) and Best Barbarian (W.W. Norton & Co., 2022), a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Tracy K. Smith called it “a revelation and a form of reparation.” His debut collection is King Me (Copper Canyon Press, 2013), a Library Journal Best Poetry Book of the y...
Apr 08, 2025•56 min
On Thursday, March 27th, the Lannan Center welcomed actress and activist Susan Sarandon to begin the final night of the center's annual symposium, this year entitled "Writing Climate", with a reading from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring . The reading was followed by a conversation with biologist Dr. Dino J. Martins, moderated by author Aminatta Forna. Dr. Dino J. Martins is internationally respected for his evolutionary biology and entomological research, biodiversity conservation work, and natura...
Mar 27, 2025•1 hr 15 min
On Thursday, March 27th, the Lannan Center welcomed award-winning author and journalist Omar El Akkad for a conversation with New York Times contributor Aida Alami as part of the center's annual symposium, this year entitled "Writing Climate". Omar El Akkad is an author and journalist. He was born in Egypt, grew up in Qatar, moved to Canada as a teenager, and now lives in the United States. The start of his journalism career coincided with the start of the war on terror, and over the following d...
Mar 27, 2025•1 hr
On Wednesday, March 26th, the Lannan Center welcomed human rights and environmental justice activist Kumi Naidoo for a conversation with Climate Rights International Founder Brad Adams as part of the center's annual symposium, this year entitled "Writing Climate". Kumi Naidoo is a prominent South African human rights and environmental justice activist. At the age of fifteen, he organized school boycotts against the apartheid educational system in South Africa. His courageous actions made him a t...
Mar 26, 2025•1 hr 7 min
On Tuesday, March 25th, the Lannan Center welcomed award-winning author Amitav Ghosh for a conversation with journalist Razia Iqbal as part of the center's annual symposium, this year entitled "Writing Climate". Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He studied in Delhi, Oxford and Alexandria and is the author of The Circle of Reason, The Shadow Lines, In An Antique Land, Dancing in Cambodia, The Calcutta Chromosome, The Glass Palace, The Hungry Tide, a...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr 2 min
On Tuesday, February 25th, the Lannan Center welcomed award-winning poet Dana Levin for a reading, hosted by Carolyn Forché. Dana Levin is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently Now Do You Know Where You Are (2022), a New York Times Notable Book and NPR “Book We Love.” Her first book, In the Surgical Theatre, was chosen by Louise Glück for the 1999 American Poetry Review/Honickman First Book Prize and went on to receive numerous honors, including the 2003 PEN/Osterweil Award. Co...
Feb 25, 2025•55 min
On Tuesday, February 4th, the Lannan Center welcomed renowned poet, essayist, professor of Classics, and translator Anne Carson for a reading, hosted by Carolyn Forché. Anne Carson was born in Toronto, Ontario, on June 21, 1950. She attended St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto and, despite leaving twice, received her BA in 1974, her MA in 1975 and her PhD in 1981. Since bursting onto the international poetry scene in 1987 with her long poem “Kinds of Water,” Carson has published n...
Feb 04, 2025•44 min
On Tuesday, January 21st, the Lannan Center presented a reading featuring poets Eduardo C. Corral and Tyree Daye, hosted by Carolyn Forché. Eduardo C. Corral is the son of Mexican immigrants. He’s the author of Guillotine , published by Graywolf Press, and Slow Lightning , which won the 2011 Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. He’s the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, a Whiting Writers’ Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a...
Jan 21, 2025•1 hr 1 min
On Tuesday, October 22nd, the Lannan Center presented an evening with award-winning author Aleksandar Hemon, hosted by Rabih Alameddine, Lannan Visiting Chair. Aleksandar Hemon is most recently the author of The World and All That It Holds (2023). He is also the author of The Lazarus Project , which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, and three collections of short stories: The Question of Bruno; Nowhere Man , which was also a finalist for the ...
Oct 22, 2024•58 min
On Tuesday, October 1st, the Lannan Center presented an evening with Booker Prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka, hosted by Tope Folarin, Lannan Creative Writing Visiting Lecturer. Shehan Karunatilaka is a Sri Lankan author from Colombo. He is the author of two novels: Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew (2010), which won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSC Prize, and the Gratiaen Prize, and The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida (Sort of Books, 2022), which won the Booker Prize. His works have been t...
Oct 01, 2024•57 min
On Tuesday, September 24th, the Lannan Center presented a reading by Duncan Wu, Raymond Wagner Professor in Literary Studies, from his debut collection of poems Origin Myths (Shearsman, 2024). Duncan Wu began his career as a Fellow by Special Election at St Catherine's College, Oxford, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow of the British Academy, in 1991. In 1995 he was appointed Reader in English Literature at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, where he became Professor of Romantic Studies in 19...
Sep 24, 2024•44 min
On March 21, 2024, renowned authors Reginald Dwayne Betts (Felon: Poems ) and Zeke Caligiuri ( This is Where I Am ) offered their thoughts on the intersection of literature and the prison system as they discussed the impact of incarceration in shaping their writing lives, creative processes and narratives. This event was cosponsored by the Prisons and Justice Initiative. Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Executive Director of Freedom Reads , a not-for...
Mar 21, 2024•1 hr 5 min
On March 20, 2024, bestselling author and deaf rights’ activist Sara Nović talked about her writing life and novel True Biz , with the Washington Post ‘s Amanda Morris. This event was coponsored by the Disability Cultural Center and ASL interpreted. Sara Nović is the author of the New York Times bestseller True Biz. Her other books are Girl at War , which won the American Library Association’s Alex Award and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and America is Immigrants. She hold...
Mar 20, 2024•1 hr 5 min
On March 19, 2024 , acclaimed author Viet Thanh Nguyen discussed his memoir, A Man of Two Faces , and reflected on the TV adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Sympathizer . With former Newshour host Razia Iqbal. Viet Thanh Nguyen ’s novel The Sympathizer (Corsair, 2016) is a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (coming to HBO as a TV series directed by Park Chan-wook). His other books include Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War (a fin...
Mar 19, 2024•1 hr 6 min
On Tuesday, February 27, 2024, the Lannan Center presented a reading featuring Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov and Slovene poet Aleš Šteger. Nikola Madzirov is the author of Remnants of Another Age and Relocated Stone , which received the Hubert Burda European Poetry Award and the prestigious Miladinov Brothers Award. He was awarded the Studentski Zbor Award for Locked in the City and the Aco Karamanov prize for Somewhere Nowhere . Born into a family of Balkan Wars refugee in 1973 in Strumica, M...
Feb 27, 2024•1 hr
On Tuesday, February 6, 2024, the Lannan Center presented a reading by poets Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Saddiq Dzukogi, Henneh Kyereh Kwaku, and Tolu Oloruntoba. Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a poet, writer and artist. Her debut poetry collection Quiet was published by Faber in 2022 and was the winner of the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 in the Poetry category. Quiet was also shortlisted for the T.S. Elliot Prize and the Pollard Poetry Prize. Saddiq Dzukogi is a Nigerian poet and Assistant Professor of ...
Feb 06, 2024•1 hr 12 min
On Tuesday, November 7, 2023, the Lannan Center presented a special reading featuring poets Carolyn Forché, Ilya Kaminsky, Lyudmyla Khersonska, and Boris Kershonsky. Moderated by Askold Melnyczuk. Renowned as a “poet of witness,” Carolyn Forché is University Professor at Georgetown and the author of five books of poetry, including In the Lateness of the World: Poems (Penguin, 2020). Born in Odesa, Ukraine, Ilya Kaminsky is the author of Deaf Republic (Graywolf, 2019), a New York Times’ Notable B...
Nov 07, 2023•1 hr 19 min
On Tuesday, October 17, 2023, the Lannan Center presented a reading by writer and Lannan Visiting Chair, Rabih Alameddine. Introduction by Deborah Tannen, Distinguished University Professor. Rabih Alameddine is the author of six critically acclaimed novels, most recently The Wrong End of the Telescope (Grove Press, 2021), winner of the Pen/Faulkner Prize in 2022. He is also the author of The Angel of History (Grove Press, 2016), winner of the Lambda Literary Award 2017; An Unnecessary Woman (Gro...
Oct 17, 2023•53 min
On Tuesday, October 3, 2023 the Lannan Center presented a reading and conversation featuring writer Leila Aboulela and moderated by Tope Folarin, Lannan Creative Writing Visiting Lecturer. Introduction by Rabih Alameddine, Lannan Visiting Chair. Leila Aboulela is a Sudanese writer whose work has received critical recognition and a high profile for its depiction of the interior lives of Muslim women and its distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. She is the author...
Oct 03, 2023•53 min
On Tuesday, September 19, 2023, the Lannan Center presented a reading by poet Arthur Sze. Introduction by Duncan Wu, Raymond Wagner Professor in Literary Studies. Arthur Sze has published eleven books of poetry, including Sight Lines (2019), which won the National Book Award, and The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021). His other books include Compass Rose (2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist and The Ginkgo Light (2009), selected for the PEN Southwest Book Award and the Mountains an...
Sep 19, 2023•1 hr 5 min
On April 11, 2023, The Lannan Center hosted a reading and talk featuring poets Camille T. Dungy and Major Jackson. Camille T. Dungy is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Trophic Cascade (Wesleyan UP, 2017), winner of the Colorado Book Award. She is also the author of the essay collections Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden (Simon & Schuster, 2023) and Guidebook to Relative Strangers: Journeys into Race, Motherhood and History (W.W. Norton, 2017), a finalist for t...
Apr 11, 2023•1 hr 11 min
On February 28, 2023, The Lannan Center hosted a reading and talk featuring poets Kazim Ali and Fanny Howe. Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. His books encompass multiple genres, including the volumes of poetry Inquisition, Sky Ward , winner of the Ohioana Book Award in Poetry; The Far Mosque , winner of Alice James Books’ New England/New York Award; The Fortieth Day ; All One’s Blue ; and the ...
Feb 28, 2023•50 min
A Conversation with Mecca Jamilah Sullivan (Author of Big Girl ) and Artist Baseera Khan , moderated by Prof. Nadia Brown. If a body could speak, what would it say? The way our bodies are viewed and categorized is not always within our power. A writer and a visual artist reflect upon representing, in words and images, the experiences which come with existing in bodies: black, brown, queer, female, Muslim, big – defined by systems of power beyond our control. Music : Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Di...
Feb 09, 2023•55 min
A Discussion with NPR’s Diane Rehm and Dr. Ewan Goligher Followed by a Panel Discussion with Dr. Lydia Dugdale (Columbia University), Dr. Ewan Goligher (University of Toronto), Diane Rehm (NPR), and Dr. Katalin Roth (George Washington University), moderated by journalist John Donvan. Should we be able to choose how and when we die? And what are the real-life consequences of laws that allow for medical assistance in dying? An international panel of physicians, writers, and ethicists set the stage...
Feb 08, 2023•1 hr 36 min
A Panel Discussion with Rabih Alameddine ( The Angel of History ), Meghan O’Rourke ( The Invisible Kingdom ), and Dr. Daniel Marchalik , moderated by Tope Folarin . More than just a sickness, pandemics are the place where illness meets politics. Today we live in the aftermath of two great pandemics, the AIDS pandemic of the 1980’s and the COVID-19 pandemic. How has our society and how have we been changed by those events? What is the role of the writer as activist or custodian of memory in the s...
Feb 07, 2023•1 hr
A Conversation with Meghan O’Rourke , Author of The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness. Music : Quantum Jazz — "Orbiting A Distant Planet" — Provided by Jamendo.
Feb 07, 2023•47 min
On Tuesday, January 24th, 2023, The Lannan Center hosted a reading and conversation with poet Patricia Smith, Patricia Smith is the award-winning author of eight critically-acclaimed books of poetry, including Incendiary Art (Triquarterly Books, 2017) , winner of the 2018 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the 2018 NAACP Image Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (Coffee House Press, 2012), winner of the Lenore Marshall Priz...
Jan 24, 2023•52 min
On Tuesday, November 15, 2022, the Lannan Center hosted a reading and conversation with writer Laila Lalami and moderated by Aminatta Forna. Laila Lalami was born in Rabat and educated in Morocco, Great Britain, and the United States. She is the author of five books, most recently, Conditional Citizens: On Belonging in America , which was shortlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Her other books include, The Moor’s Account , which won the American Book Award, the Ar...
Nov 15, 2022•1 hr 3 min
On November 1, 2022 the Lannan Center hosted a reading and talk featuring writer Chen Chen and moderated by Carolyn Forché. Chen Chen is the author of two books of poetry, Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency (BOA Editions, 2022) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (BOA Editions, 2017), which was longlisted for the National Book Award and won the Thom Gunn Award, among other honors. His work appears in many publications, including Poetry and three editi...
Nov 01, 2022•52 min
On Tuesday, October 4, 2022, the Lannan Center presented a reading and talk featuring writer Seán Hewit. Hosted by Professor Cóilín Parsons, Director of Global Irish Studies. Seán Hewitt was born in 1990. His debut collection, Tongues of Fire , is published by Jonathan Cape. He is a book critic for The Irish Times and teaches Modern British & Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. His debut collection, Tongues of Fire , won The Laurel Prize, and was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Youn...
Oct 04, 2022•58 min
