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 2025–26 Creative Writers Reading Series, the visiting writer readings will take place live and in person only.
All events are free and open to the public. For additional information, visit us on Facebook at Penn State Behrend - BFA Creative Writing.
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.
Penn State encourages persons with disabilities to participate in its programs and activities. If you anticipate needing any type of accommodation or have questions about the physical access provided, please contact Dr. Tom Noyes in advance of your participation or visit.
Fall 2025 Smith Creative Writers Reading Series
Smith Readings begin promptly at 6:00 p.m. (preceded by receptions at 5:30 p.m.).
September 18: Karin Lin-Greenberg, Fiction
Metzgar Lobby
Karin Lin-Greenberg is the author of the novel You Are Here, which was an Indie Next selection from the American Booksellers Association, a People magazine Book of the Week, and was recommended by Oprah Daily, Elle, Time magazine, The Washington Post, and others. Her first story collection, Faulty Predictions, won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and her second story collection, Vanished, won the Prairie Schooner Raz-Shumaker Book Prize. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, and her stories have appeared in journals including New England Review, The Southern Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review. She lives in upstate New York and is an associate professor in the English Department at Siena College. She also teaches in Carlow University’s MFA Program in Creative Writing.
October 16: Suzanne Cleary, Poetry
Metzgar Lobby
Suzanne Cleary’s latest collection, The Odds (New York Quarterly Books), won the 2024 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award. Her other books include Keeping Time (Carnegie Mellon University Press), Trick Pear (Carnegie Mellon University Press), Crude Angel (BkMk Press), and Beauty Mark (BkMk Press), which won the 2013 John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, the Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, and the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. Her collection Blue Cloth won the 2004 Sunken Garden Poetry Festival chapbook competition. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize, the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America, and residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. Her poems have appeared widely in anthologies and journals, including Best American Poetry, The Atlantic Monthly, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, and Poetry London. She teaches in the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Converse College and holds degrees from SUNY Oneonta, Washington University, and Indiana University of Pennsylvania. A New York City area resident for over thirty years, Cleary was born and raised upstate, in Binghamton, New York.
Additional Readings
Readings begin promptly at 6:00 p.m.
December 4: Sweet Sorrow Senior Readings
Metzgar Lobby
Graduating students from the Bachelor of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing read from their work.
Spring 2026 Smith Creative Writers Reading Series
Smith Readings begin promptly at 6:00 p.m. (preceded by receptions at 5:30 p.m.).
April 2: Dustin M. Hoffman, Fiction
Metzgar Lobby
Dustin M. Hoffman’s newest story collection, Such a Good Man, was published by the University of Wisconsin Press. He is also the author of the story collection No Good for Digging and the fiction chapbook Secrets of the Wild (Word West Press). His first book, One-Hundred-Knuckled Fist (University of Nebraska Press), won the 2015 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. He has published more than one hundred stories in journals including Black Warrior Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Ninth Letter, The Masters Review, Witness, Wigleaf, The Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, and One Story. Before earning his M.F.A. in fiction from Bowling Green State University and his Ph.D. in creative writing from Western Michigan University, he spent ten years painting houses in Michigan.
April 9: Nin Andrews, Poetry
Metzgar Lobby
Nin Andrews’s most recent book is Son or a Bird: A Memoir in Prose Poems (Etruscan Press, 2025). She is the author of fifteen poetry collections, including The Last Orgasm (2020), Miss August (2017), and Why God Is a Woman (2015). She is also the editor of a book of translations of the Belgian writer Henri Michaux. She is the recipient of two Ohio Individual Artist Grants, the Pearl Chapbook Prize, the Wick Chapbook Contest, and the Gerald Cable Award. Her poetry has been featured in numerous journals and anthologies, including Ploughshares, Agni, The Paris Review, Best American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present, The Best of the Prose Poem: An International Journal, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Poetry, and The Best American Erotic Poems. Her poetry has been translated into Turkish, performed in Prague, and anthologized in England, Australia, and Mongolia.
Additional Readings
Readings begin promptly at 6:00 p.m.
March 26: Behrend Reads
Metzgar Lobby
At the annual Behrend Reads event, college faculty and staff share their original works of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. Light refreshments provided.
April 16: Sweet Sorrow Senior Readings
Metzgar Lobby
Graduating students from the Bachelor of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing read from their work.
April 23: BFA Reception for George Looney Retirement
Metzgar Lobby
A retirement reception and literary reading in honor of Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing George Looney. Light refreshments provided.