The Writing Seminars

Robyn Schiff is the author of four poetry collections: Worth (University of Iowa Press, 2002), Revolver(University of Iowa Press, 2008),  A Woman of Property(Penguin, 2016), and Information Desk: An Epic (Penguin, 2023), which was named a best book of the year by The Washington Postand The New Yorker, and was an Editor's Choice at The New York Times. A professor at the University […]

Lauren Russell is the author of A Window That Can Neither Open nor Close: Poems, Plots, Chance (Milkweed Editions, 2024); Descent (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2020), winner of the Poetry Society of America’s 2021 Anna Rabinowitz Award for “venturesome, interdisciplinary work”; and What’s Hanging on the Hush (Ahsahta Press, 2017). Russell has received fellowships from the […]

Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, winner of the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Lambda Literary award, and the Southern California Book Award. His debut novel, We the Animals, won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, […]

Born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, Solmaz Sharif is the author of Customs (Graywolf Press, 2022) and Look (Graywolf Press, 2016), a finalist for the National Book Award. She holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied and taught with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, and New York University. Her work has appeared in […]

Peter Carey is one of three writers in history to have won the Booker Prize twice, first for Oscar and Lucinda and then for True History of the Kelly Gang. His Parrot and Olivier in America was shortlisted for the both the Man Booker Prize and the National Book Award.   Born in Australia, Peter Carey […]

Mary Ruefle is the author of many books, including The Book  (Wave Books, 2023), Dunce (Wave Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize, longlisted for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, as well as a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize. She is also the author of My Private Property (Wave […]

Shannon Robinson’s debut short story collection, The Ill-Fitting Skin, is winner of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. Her writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Iowa Review, Joyland, Nimrod, failbetter, The Hopkins Review, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in fiction from Washington University in St. Louis, and in 2011 she was […]

Vauhini Vara is the author of This is Salvaged, which was longlisted for the Story Prize and the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and The Immortal King Rao, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and was […]

Writing Seminars Presents: Armen Davoudian and Jenny Xie Armen Davoudian Davoudian is the author of the poetry collection The Palace of Forty Pillars and the translator, from Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams. He grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.  Photo credit: Matthew Lansburgh Jenny Xie Xie is […]

Sigrid Nunez has published nine novels, including A Feather on the Breath of God, The Last of Her Kind, The Friend, What Are You Going Through, and, most recently, The Vulnerables. Nunez is also the author of Sempre Susan: A Memoir of Susan Sontag. The Friend, a New York Times bestseller, won the 2018 National […]

Eric Puchner is the author of the new novel Dream State. His other books include the novel Model Home, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and two collections of short stories, Last Day on Earth and Music Through the Floor, a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award.  His stories and personal essays […]