2015-16 Reading Series

Kirstin Valdez Quade 
Kirstin Valdez Quade

Wednesday | Oct. 28, 2015 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room

Kirstin Valdez Quade鈥檚 debut short story collection, Night at the Fiestas, was published by Norton to widespread acclaim. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Kyle Minor says the best of her stories are 鈥渓egitimate masterpieces鈥aunting and beautiful. Quade attempts, page by page, to give up carefully held secrets, to hold them up to the light so we can get at the truth beneath, the existential truth. Perhaps this is as close as we can get to what is sacred in an age in which so many have otherwise rejected the idea of the sacred.鈥 A 鈥5 Under 35鈥 honoree from the National Book Foundation and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer鈥檚 Award winner, Quade鈥檚 stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Narrative Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories.


Louise Gl眉ck
Louise Gluck

Wednesday | Nov. 11, 2015 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room

Louise Gl眉ck is the author of a book of essays and 16 books of poetry, including Faithful and Virtuous Night, winner of the 2014 National Book Award. Writing in The New York Times Book Review, poet Stephen Dobyns says, 鈥淭he world [her poems] describe is a world from which we too often try to escape. No American poet writes better than Louise Gl眉ck; perhaps none can lead us so deeply into our own natures.鈥 U.S. Poet Laureate from 2003 to 2004, Gl眉ck has won the Pulitzer and Bollingen Prizes.

This reading was made possible with the support of the Jane Flanders Fund and the Marianne Moore Fund for the Study of Poetry.


Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker

Wednesday | Nov. 18, 2016 | 7:30 p.m. | Ely Room, Wyndham Guest House

Nicholson Baker is the author of 10 novels and five books of nonfiction, including Double Fold: Libraries and the Assault on Paper, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Writing in the New York Review of Books, critic Michael Dirda says, 鈥淏aker [is] a stunning writer鈥here is iron in his sentences as well as gold and filigree, there are shouts of warning, cries of dissent.鈥 A frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the winner of the 2014 International Hermann Hesse Prize, Baker鈥檚 novel Traveling Sprinkler is a sequel to his 2009 bestseller The Anthologist. He is an alumnus of Haverford College.


Colson Whitehead
Colson Whitehead

Wednesday | Feb. 3, 2016 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room

Novelist and essayist Colson Whitehead is the author of two books of nonfiction and five novels, including the post-apocalyptic fiction Zone One, a national bestseller. Writing in Time Magazine, novelist and critic Walter Kirn called Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist, 鈥渢he freshest racial allegory since Ralph Ellison鈥檚 Invisible Man and Toni Morrison鈥檚 The Bluest Eye.鈥 Whitehead鈥檚 book of nonfiction, The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky and Death, an account of the 2011 World Series of Poker, was also published in paperback. Whitehead is a frequent contributor to The New Yorker, and the recipient of both a MacArthur Foundation grant and a Guggenheim fellowship.


Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh

Wednesday | Feb. 24, 2016 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room

Heather McHugh is the author of eight books of poems, including Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968-1993, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Book Review 鈥淣otable Book of the Year.鈥 Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass says, 鈥渉er writing is so alert to itself, so alert to language, it鈥檚 like watching a dancer on a mirrored floor, stepping on her steps. She鈥檚 practically playing with her words as she writes them down.鈥 McHugh won a MacArthur Grant and was a finalist for the Pulitzer.

This reading was made possible with the support of the Jane Flanders Fund and the Marianne Moore Fund for the Study of Poetry.


Phillip Lopate
Phillip Lopate

Wednesday | April 13, 2016 | 7:30 p.m. | Goodhart Music Room

Phillip Lopate is the author of more than a dozen books, including the essay collections Portrait Inside My Head, Getting Personal and Against Joie de Vivre. Lopate鈥檚 edited anthology The Art of the Personal Essay has been the standard volume of its kind since its publication more than 30 years ago. Of his work, critic Sven Birkerts says, 鈥淟opate鈥egisters with accuracy and tact the voice of a man of deep human impulse living in a civilization on the wane. His fearlessness is tonic, his candor is straight gin.鈥