Celebrated writers of poetry, fiction, and literary non-fiction visit campus several times each year to give lectures, readings, discussions, and book signings. For the Fall 2024 Creative Writers Reading Series, the three visiting writer readings will take place live and in person only.
The BFA program is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, bringing some special events to this year's Creative Writers Reading Series.
All events are free and open to the public.
The Creative Writers Reading Series is produced by Penn State Behrend's B.F.A. in Creative Writing degree program with support from the Clarence A. and Eugenie Baumann Smith Fund.
For additional information, visit us on Facebook at Penn State Behrend - BFA Creative Writing.
Fall 2024 Smith Creative Writers Reading Series
Smith Readings begin promptly at 6:00 p.m. (preceded by receptions at 5:30 p.m.).
September 5 – Abby Frucht, Fiction
Metzgar Lobby
Abby Frucht will participate in the Smith Creative Writers Reading Series.
Abby Frucht is the author of two short story collections: Fruit of the Month, which received the Iowa Short Fiction Prize in 1987, and The Bell at the End of a Rope (Narrative Library, 2012). She has also written six novels: Snap, Licorice, Are You Mine?, Life before Death, Polly’s Ghost, and A Well-Made Bed (Red Hen Press, 2016), on which she collaborated with Laurie Alberts. She served as mentor and adviser for more than twenty-five years at Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Her newest book, Maids (Matter Press, 2020), a work of nonfiction, was a finalist and/or semi-finalist for the Slope Editions Book Prize, the Marie Alexander Poetry Book Prize, The Robert C. Jones Short Prose Book Prize, the 42 Miles Poetry Book Prize, and the Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize.
September 26 – Hollie Dugas, Poetry
Metzgar Lobby
Hollie Dugas will participate in the Smith Creative Writers Reading Series.
Hollie Dugas lives in New Mexico. Her work has appeared in Lake Effect, Barrow Street, Reed Magazine, Qu, Redivider, Porter House Review, Salamander, Poet Lore, Mud Season Review, The Louisville Review, The Penn Review, Breakwater Review, Sixth Finch, Gordon Square Review, Phoebe, Broad River Review, and Louisiana Literature. Her poem “A Woman’s Confession #5,162” was selected as the winner of Western Humanities Review’s Mountain West Writers’ Contest in 2017. Hollie has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for inclusion in Best New Poets. Most recently, she was awarded the 22nd Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize at CALYX, the Heartwood Poetry Prize, and was named as a finalist in Atlanta Review’s International Poetry Contest.
October 3 – Henrietta Goodman, Poetry
Metzgar Lobby
Henrietta Goodman will participate in the Smith Creative Writers Reading Series.
Henrietta Goodman’s newest book of poems is Antillia (University of Nebraska Press, 2024). She is the author of three other poetry collections, including the sonnet-sequence All That Held Us, which won the 2018 John Ciardi Award and was published by BkMk Press. Her first book, Take What You Want, won the Beatrice Hawley Award from Alice James Books and was published in 2007. She has published poems and essays in The New England Review, New Ohio Review, Terrain, The American Journal of Poetry, and many other journals.
Additional Readings
Readings begin promptly at 6:00 p.m.
December 5 – Sweet Sorrow Senior Readings
Metzgar Lobby
Graduating students from the Bachelor of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing read from their work.