The Grand Valley State University Writing Department will welcome both established and up-and-coming writers to campus throughout the school year for the annual Writers Series. 

This year’s Writers Series features eight distinguished authors at six individual events taking place between Monday, Sept. 17 and Tuesday, Apr. 9. Each event is open to the public and includes a discussion about the craft of writing and a reading. Authors will also visit classes so students can have the opportunity to learn about artistic career paths, the art of writing and other invaluable tips from distinguished writers. 

Many students and staff members are excited about the diverse group of authors this year as they cover all genres ranging from fiction to essays to poetry.

“We have so many great visitors coming to campus this semester,” said Todd Kaneko, assistant professor of writing and event coordinator.  “Marian Crotty is an award-winning fiction writer, Michele Morano is an acclaimed essayist and memoirist, Arunava Sinha is one of the leading literary translators of Bengali into English and Kaveh Akbar and Paige Lewis are acclaimed and award-winning poets. Add to this, the faculty reading by Professor Chris Haven and Visiting Professor Gale Thompson, as well as the visit by Lindsey Drager, who is not only a professor at College of Charleston and an award-winning fiction writer, but also a GVSU alumna from the writing department—it’s a big year for the writers series, so it’s difficult to pick just one thing to look forward to.”

Not only is the GVSU community anxiously waiting to meet these authors, but the writers themselves are looking forward to the event. 

“I’m eager to meet students, especially during the afternoon craft talk,” said Michele Morano, English professor at DePaul University and author of the memoir ‘Grammar Lessons: Translating a Life in Spain’. “Readings are always fun and I do them quite a bit, but I don’t always have a chance to talk about craft with students other than my own. So I’m looking forward to hearing what writers at GVSU are up to.” Morano is scheduled to visit campus on Thursday, Nov. 15 for a Nonfiction Craft Talk and Reading. 

Students will have the unique opportunity to learn firsthand about the work and writing process of experienced authors and a significant amount of information will be available to students through this event. 

“Students will learn about how to be a writer and what it means to be a writer from the different Writers Series events, but just as importantly, they get to meet writers who are not their teachers,” Kaneko said. “It’s a reminder to them that the stories, essays and poems we read in books and magazines and in classes are texts written by real people with real lives out there in the world. I hope that when students meet our visitors this year, they are able to see parts of themselves in the writers, and in doing so, students can understand that a career as a writer of stories or essays or poems is something that they can pursue in the real world, and what it means to pursue an artistic career.”

The upcoming event for the Writers Series is a Fiction Reading and Question & Answer with fiction author and GVSU alumna Lindsey Drager on Thursday, Oct. 4. 

“It’s an intimate relationship between a writer and the blank page,” Kaneko said.  “And this is a chance to get insight into those relationships as they are seen by our visiting writers.”