University of Minnesota English

Congrats to MFA alum and current associate faculty member chaun webster, who won a 2026 McKnight Fellowship for Writers, Loft Awards in Poetry/Spoken Word! webster this summer published his third book, Without Terminus.

McKnight | The Loft Literary Center One $25,000 fellowship is awarded each year in children’s literature, including poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction. This year’s award is offered to a writer for children younger than 8 years old. 

“I’m essentially studying three very strange writers of late Victorian Britain and what they have to say about what ‘consciousness’ is." PhD candidate Kayla Carden won a CLA fellowship for her dissertation project on the theories of mind of Victorian poet-philosopher Constance Naden (pictured), philologist Alexander John Ellis, and physicist John Tyndall:
z.umn.edu/Carden

What have been the signature moments of 25 years of our Freier visiting author series? Rita Dove dancing on stage with her husband? Denis Johnson joking that Train Dreams was so short, even his friends read it? Alison Bechdel sharing her screen from her Vermont studio during COVID?

Read the University of Minnesota Alumni Association story on how the late Medical Technology Professor Esther Freier's gift continues to inspire University students and Twin Cities audiences:
www.minnesotaalumni.org/stories/up-front-22

Congrats to Megan Giddings, who has been officially promoted to the rank of associate professor! She was also awarded a University McKnight Presidential Fellowship, an award “given to the most promising individuals who have been granted both tenure and promotion to associate professor in an academic year.”

Giddings is the author of three novels, most recently Meet Me at the Crossroads, which was a Washington Post best science fiction novel of 2025 and an NPR choice for Books We Love. Her first collection of short stories, Black Arts, will be published September 8.

Join us in congratulating Associate Professor Giddings on this milestone!

https://brief.umn.edu/awards-recognition/151-newly-tenured-faculty-and-two-regents-professors-named

Five years ago this month, on a day as sweltering as today, the English department moved into Pillsbury Hall. The 1889 building's interior had been extensively renovated for English, after longtime inhabitants Earth & Environmental Sciences moved to Tate Hall. Since then, our students have made Pillsbury their home, claiming study spots, decorating offices, growing comfortable in classrooms such as the popular attic space, creating memories. A continuing pleasure to work, teach, and study within these historic walls.

Hyped to bring George Saunders to the UMN and Minneapolis Sept 22! The author of LINCOLN IN THE BARDO and many extraordinary short stories will be reading from his #1 New York Times bestseller VIGIL and conversing with Regents Prof (and novelist) Julie Schumacher. Get your FREE tickets today!

An Evening with George Saunders The "genius" short story writer and novelist reads from his new book as part of the 25th anniversary Freier Series celebration.

As fall book previews are proliferating, check out spring-summer publications by our faculty and alums you can read right now! FYI, MFA alum Isaac Butler is getting lots of notice for THE PERFECT MOMENT (he's in town this Thurs at Magers & Quinn Booksellers):

New Pages: Summer 2026 A raft of new fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from faculty and alums!

Congrats to Assistant Prof Aamina Ahmad who today publishes her first story collection, July Sun, of which Kirkus noted "each story feels lived in, more expansive than its page count." Her 2022 novel The Return of Faraz Ali garnered numerous honors, including the LA Times Book Prize's Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.

July Sun by Aamina Ahmad: 9798217046126 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books “Ahmad’s compassion, her deep care for the psychological and emotional nuances of her characters, never wavers.” – The New York Times Book Review In a searing collection by the...

Register today to hear Prof Aamina Ahmad discuss her new story collection July Sun with Prof V. V. Ganeshananthan, June 30 at Magers & Quinn!
https://www.magersandquinn.com/event/Aamina-Ahmad-presents-July-Sun/632