Vanderbilt Creative Writing

Vanderbilt Creative Writing The Creative Writing Program in the Department of English at Vanderbilt University. Vanderbilt’s writing tradition continues today with its new M.F.A.

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

Vanderbilt University, located in Nashville, Tennessee, has been the home of creative writers for nearly a century. Since the poet and critic John Crowe Ransom taught his famous class, which he called “a practical course in writing various types of prose, including the short story,” many important writers have worked and studied at Vanderbilt, among the

m, Robert Penn Warren, Randall Jarrell, Peter Taylor, Ellen Gilchrist, and James Dickey. Program in Creative Writing. For more information, please contact Margaret Quigley, MFA Program Assistant at [email protected]

Join us for the annual Undergraduate Creative Writing Popsicle Social on Wednesday, September 23 at the Benson Hall West...
08/27/2026

Join us for the annual Undergraduate Creative Writing Popsicle Social on Wednesday, September 23 at the Benson Hall West Lawn & Porch at 5pm! 🍧💙

Come grab a fun end-of-summer treat and learn about all that our program has to offer. Open to Creative Writing majors/minors and English faculty. Please RSVP at the link provided via email. We hope to see you there!

Don't miss our upcoming events with U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey on September 10! ✒️📚Location: Special Collectio...
08/27/2026

Don't miss our upcoming events with U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey on September 10! ✒️📚

Location: Special Collections Library & University Archives
1101 19th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37212

6:30 Literary Salon
7:00 Reading
8:00 Book Signing

Pulitzer Prize-winner Natasha Trethewey served two terms as the 19th Poet Laureate of the United States (2012-2014), while also serving as the Poet Laureate of the State of Mississippi (2012-2016). She is the author of the New York Times bestseller Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir (2020) and five collections of poetry, including Monument: Poems New & Selected (2018), which was longlisted for the 2018 National Book Award. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Academy of American Poets, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2020, she received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry from the Library of Congress.

It's going to be a great year of events! Check out our lineup of writers this fall for The Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vande...
08/27/2026

It's going to be a great year of events! Check out our lineup of writers this fall for The Gertrude C. & Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series. ✒️📚

September 10 - Natasha Trethewey, Poetry
September 24 - Peter Orner, Fiction
October 8 - Elise Paschen, Poetry
October 29 - Ayana Mathis, Fiction
December 3 - Victoria Redel, Fiction

Visit the link in our bio for more information. Sign up for our monthly newsletter so you never miss an event!

MFA & PhD Brunch 2026 🩵
08/24/2026

MFA & PhD Brunch 2026 🩵

Congratulations to the winner and honorable mention recipient of the 2026 Academy of American Poets College Prize!Winner...
05/13/2026

Congratulations to the winner and honorable mention recipient of the 2026 Academy of American Poets College Prize!

Winner: Ayesha Asad, MFA, for "Machinery"

Honorable Mention: Lana Reeves, MFA, for "My Mom Had to Teach Me Real Pearls are Gritty in the Mouth"

Judge: Kiyoko Reidy (MFA '22), Author of Black Holes and Their Feeding Habits (2025)

Congratulations to our recent graduates in Creative Writing! We enjoyed hearing a few talented students read their work ...
05/13/2026

Congratulations to our recent graduates in Creative Writing! We enjoyed hearing a few talented students read their work last month. 📚

Readers: Jacqueline Welsh, Eleni Ertel, Sorin Caldararu, Katerina Krizner, Nicole Reynaga, Colleen Newman, Cady Butcher, Tam Obisesan

Special thanks to Events Coordinator Arianna Pappas, Director of Creative Writing Major Jackson, and Photographer Tim Gollins.

Let's hear it for our Creative Writing MFA Graduates👏 They read excerpts from their work on Thursday, April 23 in Alumni...
05/08/2026

Let's hear it for our Creative Writing MFA Graduates👏 They read excerpts from their work on Thursday, April 23 in Alumni Hall and received thunderous applause for their accomplishments these last three years at Vanderbilt. We're so proud and we can't wait to see what they do next! 💛🖤

Photos 1-6: Iman Saleem (fiction), Kumari Devarajan (fiction), Athena Nassar (poetry), Sydney Mayes (poetry), Langston Cotman (fiction), Ajla Dizdarevic (poetry)

Special thanks to Director of Creative Writing Major Jackson, Events Coordinator Arianna Pappas, and Photographer Tim Gollins.

We were thrilled to host Vanderbilt Literary Prize Winner Melissa Range on Thursday, April 16. Swipe to see a few of the...
05/08/2026

We were thrilled to host Vanderbilt Literary Prize Winner Melissa Range on Thursday, April 16. Swipe to see a few of the moments captured that evening➡️ The full photo gallery can be viewed on our website. Go grab your copy of Printer's Fist today!

1 - Major Jackson, Melissa Range, Patrick Samuel
5 - Melissa Range and Mark Jarman

✒️ Special thanks to Vanderbilt University Press, Patrick Samuel, Gianna Mosser, Rachael Johnson, Events Coordinator Arianna Pappas, Director of Creative Writing Major Jackson, and Photographer Tim Gollins.

We had the pleasure of hosting Fiction Author Mitchell S. Jackson at Vanderbilt on February 12! He is the author of 'Fly...
03/18/2026

We had the pleasure of hosting Fiction Author Mitchell S. Jackson at Vanderbilt on February 12! He is the author of 'Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion', 'Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family', and 'The Residue Years'.

Thank you to Special Collections and University Archives, The Vanderbilt Bookstore, Events Coordinator Arianna Pappas, and Director of Creative Writing Major Jackson. Photo credit goes to Tim Gollins.

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