Master Lecturers

Master Lecturers

Each semester, distinguished authors visit the Writer’s Foundry to deliver master lectures on notable works of writing. Each visiting lecturer is asked to speak, one writer to another, on literary concerns of the featured book.

Current Lectures:

  • Jim Shepard on Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson
  • Emily Pittinos on Wilder by Claire Wahmanholm
  • Nadia Owusu on her memoir Aftershocks
  • Haleh Liza Gafori on Gold by Rumi
  • Elizabeth Crane on Percival Everett by Virgil Russell by Percival Everett
  • Carmen Maria Machado on The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
  • Alicia Mountain on her poetry collection Four in Hand
  • Megan Fernandes on To Stand at the Precipice Alone and Repeat What is Whispered by A'isha Sasha John
  • Miranda Popkey on Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison
  • Susan Cheever The Collected Stories of John Cheever

Past Lectures

We’re honored to have previously hosted the following lecturers:

  • Betsy Bonner on Fun House by Alison Bechdel
  • Christopher Castellani on HHhH by Laurent Binet
  • Eduardo C. Corral on Notes From the Divided Country by Suji Kwock Kim
  • Anaïs Duplan on Black Dada Reader by Adam Pendleton
  • Cornelius Eady on The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes
  • Deborah Eisenberg on Skylark by Deszo Kosztolanyi
  • Kali Fajardo-Anstine on The Rain God by Arturo Islas
  • Nick Flynn on Eric Fair's memoir, Consequence
  • Mary Gaitskill on The Journals of John Cheever
  • Amy Hempel on Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison and on Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli
  • Randall Horton on Carlene Hatcher Polite's novel, The Flagellants
  • Major Jackson on Forest Primeval by Vievee Francis
  • Mitchell S. Jackson on Airships by Barry Hannah
  • Laura Kolbe on Autobiography of Death by Kim Hyesoon
  • Paul La Farge on Patrick Rosal's poetry collection, Brooklyn Antediluvian
  • Paige Lewis on Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer
  • Wyatt Mason on Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
  • Alice Mattison on To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
  • Nathan McClain on Ellen Bryant Voigt’s Headwaters
  • Jill McCorkle on her novel Hieroglyphics
  • Wayétu Moore on We Cast a Shadow by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
  • Cleyvis Natera on The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
  • Taylor Plimpton on James Salter's novel, A Sport and a Pasttime
  • Francine Prose on Muriel Spark's novel, Loitering with Intent
  • Mark Richard on The Good Lord Bird by James McBride
  • Jim Shepard on No One Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July
  • Safiya Sinclair on Shara McCallum’s poetry collection, Madwoman
  • Ocean Vuong on Eduardo C. Corral’s poetry collection, Slow Lightning
  • William Wall on Frank O’Connor’s first story collection, Guests of a Nation
  • Phillip B. Williams on Bone Map by Sara Eliza Johnson
  • Rebecca Wolff on Octavia Butler’s novel, Parable of the Sower