MFA alum Fenton will be reading from his new novel 6 pm tonight at @nextchapterbooksmn.bsky.social

"Adaptability, curiosity, and adventuresome thinking—traits encouraged by a liberal arts education—can lead to work you might never predict" BA alum Jason Heaton describes a career of writing about adventure travel and gear:

Happy pub day and cheers to MFA alum Kevin Fenton, whose novel Cyan Magenta Yellow Black won the Big Moose Prize from @blacklawrence.bsky.social "Stylish, smart, and big-hearted...lovingly summons the Minneapolis Saint Paul of December of 1993, just before the internet changed everything"

Recent English alum Zayna Amanat was selected to "scout and evaluate intellectual property (IP)" for Netflix adaptations this past summer, which involved reading "multiple novels, short stories, graphic novels." Takeaway? "There are more ways to use my editorial skills that I didn't know about...."

Co-signed and co-sponsored. Next Wed hear from the co-editors of the great anthology of essays, poems, and artwork from migrants, refugees, and Dreamers:

Including a free event this afternoon on "Black Food Politics, History, and Transformation" in our building, with the Liberal Arts Engagement Hub #FarmAid40 #UMNCLA

Tonight at 7 pm: BA alum Sheila O’Connor talks about her MNBA-winning novel Evidence of V with Mubanga Kalimamukwento for One Book Minnesota book club! Online and free:

From alum Kate Hopper, author of Ready for Air: A Journey Through Premature Motherhood and Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers:

Congrats to MFA nonfiction student Julia Oschwald Tilton who won the prose Epiphany 2025 Breakout Writers Prize! Judge Hilary Leichter noted: ”‘Fertile’ is a beautiful example of the way a single word, when examined carefully, can contain multiple registers of beauty, pain, and promise"

Congrats to MFA alum Ethan Rutherford on making the National Book Award fiction longlist! North Sun is his debut novel after two story collections:

Minneapolis and St Paul: Join us in person next Thurs for a free reading by the legendary poet CAConrad. Eileen Myles wrote admiringly of "the fullness of their exposition...deeply informed by love, and a tenderness for the ravages and tumult of existence"

Prof Katherine Scheil discusses Anne Hathaway's epitaph and legacy. Scheil is the author of Imagining Shakespeare's Wife.

This Great Gatsby exhibit looks intriguing, opening Saturday at @artsmia.bsky.social Next stop after the pilgrimage to Mia's "Cream of the Crop" State Fair seed art showcase!

Celebrate National Read a Book Day by reading a short book...such as Prof Julie's Schumacher's comic campus novel Dear Committee Members! [Certified lol* so be mindful about where you read it.] *Thurber Prize for American Humor

Looking to read a new literary magazine? Prof (and poet) Peter Campion is the EIC of REVEL, which won a 2025 @clmporg.bsky.social Best Magazine/Debut Firecracker Award! Prof Campion interviewed about REVEL:

First year? Transfer? Interested in English/Creative Writing? Pick up swag, bagels, and info at our annual open house! The UMN Learning Abroad Center, student group FUSE, and Tower lit mag will be around to answer Qs. (If you already know it all, just come say hey.) 10am-12pm Wed Sept 10

"Brotherless Night is a beautifully rendered portrait of a family shattered by war, and of a young woman who endures with courage when everything she loves is at risk" Prof @sugi.bsky.social's novel makes another recommended list: @crimereads.bsky.social

Prof @sugi.bsky.social with NYT book critics re: road trip books, driving (or not), and the best music for the road:

And... our final visiting writer event of this fall will be the author of There's Always This Year, Hanif Abdurraqib! (Winner of the @bookcritics.bsky.social 2025 award for criticism!) Free with registration. Join us Nov 17:

Alum @alisonmcghee.bsky.social reads along with former English writer in residence Kao Kalia Yang this Wed--as contributors to Locker Room Talk: Women in Private Spaces, winner of the 2025 Minnesota Book Award for Best Anthology! @spoutpress.bsky.social

Join us for Sarah Thankam Mathews on Oct 27! The LA Times named her debut All This Could Be Different a "5 Best Fiction Book of 2022": "Crafting a coming-of-age story about a queer character enduring post-capitalism with a gimlet eye, Mathews is simultaneously hilarious, tender and meaningful"

Another fall event: We're excited to bring Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, to Minneapolis October 23! Join us to hear from the MacArthur "Genius" Fellow and his latest novel The Emperor of Gladness. Free with registration: #umnproud

"I’m reading Britain and Barbary 1589-1689 by Nabil Matar—heaven for a history nerd like me. I studied English literature & history because I’ve always wanted to write stories rooted in our past. For me history is both escapism & essential knowledge" Mariah Idrissi cites Prof Matar's book:

Yes, this week we’re announcing our fall visiting writer readings! First up Sept 18: Ruth Lilly Prize winner CAConrad. According to The Guardian, Conrad writes “poetry with real ambition that wants to hug us—it’s big, it’s queer, and like paprika you can never have enough of it" Free as usual!

Yellowface, by last spring's visiting author RF Kuang, is being discussed by the Twin Cities @books-and-bars.bsky.social book club 6:30 pm this Wed at @utepilsbrewing.com booksandbars.com

MFA alum Elisabeth Workman reads next Thur (free!) as part of Walker Art Center's Green Roof Poetry series. With Moheb Soliman and M.L. Martin on the theme of nature and place: walkerart.org/calendar/2025/green-roof-poetry-nature

BA alum Catherine Dang reads and discusses her second novel What Hunger at Magers & Quinn next Tues Aug 19! "haunting coming-of-age tale following the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants" www.magersandquinn.com/event/Catherine-Dang-presents-What-Hunger/515

Remember the tune "Little Boxes," written by Malvina Reynolds and popularized by Pete Seeger? A new, old recording from Prof Emerita--and legendary [email protected] finds Stekert taking on Reynolds’ “On the Rim of the World." From Stekert’s personal archives: ellenstekert.com

"Eze succeeds marvelously in drawing the detailed inner lives of a community and its diaspora over decades" Prof @sugi.bsky.social reviews Tochi Eze's novel This Kind of Trouble in @nytimes.com Gift article:

"As far as how you go about helping, the thing that’s been done wrong historically is coming from a place of privilege or comfort into another place and telling people 'This is what you need. I’m gonna fix you.' It’s not only something people resent, it’s wrong" Kingsolver w/ Prof @sugi.bsky.social

Congrats to BA alum (and former MN Teacher of the Year!) @mrtomrad.bsky.social on publishing THREE chapter books this month: *Bucket and Friends Argue and Then Save Part of the World *Bucket and Friends Save Part of the World With a Wall *Bucket and Friends Save (Part Of) the World with a Name

On Sat, authors Ronald “Bino” Greer II, Sarith Peou, and Von Johnson will lead three writing and poetry engagements via Zoom from Minnesota State Prison. Join BA alum Emily Baxter's We Are All Criminals org for workshops and opening ceremonies for the SEEN exhibit at Minneapolis Central Library:

The next featured title in the One Book Minnesota book club is by BA alum Sheila O’Connor! You can download the ebook of Evidence of V: a Novel in Fragments, Facts, and Fictions and register for a statewide virtual author discussion--all free. Links and info:

Congrats to BA alum Johannes Göransson, editor along with Joyelle McSweeney of Action Books--which published this Landon Translation Award-winner!

Cheers for MFA student @okwudilin.bsky.social! #UMNProud @lambdaliterary.org

Aug 8-10 is the Minneapolis Indie Bookstore Romance Day Crawl, returning along with Bookstore Romance Day. Get the punch card bookmark to participate at @moonpalacebooks.bsky.social @wildrumpusbooktore.bsky.social Magers & Quinn, Tropes & Trifles and more!

Next Tues Aug 5, Prof Douglas Kearney reads at @moonpalacebooks.bsky.social with the ReEntry Lab's Better Things series! In partnership with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. Also reading: Ollie Schminkey, Lamar Renville, Eli Simmons, and Nell Ubbelohde!

Next Saturday 12-3pm at Minneapolis' Midtown Global Market: The Authors & Illustrators Book Fair fills the market with books, authors, and literary fun with a focus on Picture Books through Young Adult:

Attn Twin Cities @maggiestiefvater.bsky.social fans: The Raven Boys author is in town next Friday at St. Cate's! Tickets are $26.46, and you get the new Raven Boys graphic novel. Presented by @redballoonbookshop.bsky.social and St. Cate's:

Cool poetry event next Wed July 30 with Conduit Books and Minds on Fire: Collin Callahan, Trey Moody, and G.E. Patterson at St. Paul's White Squirrel Bar!

Cool event: Alum poet & essayist Kathryn Savage in conversation this Thur with @mollyolguin.bsky.social about Olguín's new story collection @nextchapterbooksmn.bsky.social

"I think all of these [stories] were written for readings in New York. So Atlantis becomes a metaphor for NY, as well as things that are lost, for a NY that’s lost, for venues and journals and friends who are gone" Ed Park interviewed by Prof @sugi.bsky.social on new book An Oral History of Atlantis

Prof Douglas Kearney created the visual poems in his new collection, I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always (Wave Books), with “performative typography." The poems are inspired in part by the texture and collage of hip hop sampling, Kearney says in our interview: #UMNproud #poetry

Cool event July 23: Star Tribune Books Editor Chris Hewitt interviews two-time Minnesota Book Award-winning author Karen Babine about her new book The Allure of Elsewhere: A Memoir of Going Solo. @milkweededitions.bsky.social @startribune.com #roadtrips

Happy pub day to MFA alum @johnlapine.bsky.social with essay collection An Unstable Container! @bullcitypress.com "Resonating with a distinct, lyrical Midwestern sensibility, LaPine’s work examines with tenderness the intersections of language, society, and the body in our construction of the self"

Why do so many grad students ask Prof Timothy Brennan to advise their dissertations? "A wealth of knowledge about international relations, with which he built an inclusive learning space: one that felt not only safe for students like me who were from overseas, but also intellectually stimulating"

"English professor Lianna Farber said book banning is not a law that is enforced, and is a spectrum that gets confused quickly." Story by @mndaily.bsky.social mndaily.com/294761/uncat...

"three feet behind my grin I speak so seems my teeth is down for it" Prof Douglas Kearney's "There's no sass in 'dissociation.'" is today's poem of the day! @poetsorg.bsky.social poets.org/poem-a-day

Vacation reading! MFA alum Shana Youngdahl's A Catalog of Burnt Objects is an "unputdownable story" of a teen witnessing her mountain town burn. And Ethan Rutherford's debut novel is "the Moby Dick for our times" ;-) Check out new books from English faculty and alums:

This Saturday! Nearly 40 booksellers of the used, old, and rare: