Writing Now Reading Series

Structured around the work of several visiting contemporary writers, the Writing Now Reading Series and Seminar is a required course for CalArts MFA creative writing graduate students that showcases vibrant new modalities for writing that refresh today’s interconnected creative fields. Writing Now offers inspiring points of contact and critical conversation about writing process and practice between visiting writers, students and local audiences, with an eye for fostering the collaborative, the future-forward, and the unexpected in literature.

This fall, the series features readings and workshops with writers whose work is connected to the Creative Writing Program’s concentrations: Image & Text, Documentary Strategies, Writing & Performativity, and Writing & Its Publics.

How to Attend the Writing Now Readings Series

Readings will take place in Butler Building BB#4-G. Any location changes will be announced to the RSVP list and on the event pages.

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Spring 2024

Writing Now Reading Series: Deborah Taffa, Raquel Gutiérrez, and Layli Long Soldier

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Please join the Creative Writing MFA program in welcoming our special guests from our partners in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts! 

READING Thursday, March 21 at 6 pm - Butler Building #4 - Deborah Taffa and Raquel Gutiérrez | Reception to follow. More info.

TALK Friday, March 22 at 10 am - Zoom - Layli Long Soldier | Email amccann@calarts.edu or csartistcoordinator@calarts.edu for link. More info.

SALON riday, March 22 at 1 pm - Langley - Deborah Taffa and Raquel Gutiérrez | Discussion of the week's events and IAIA/CalArts Partnership

Deborah Jackson Taffa’s debut book, Whiskey Tender, forthcoming from HarperCollins on Feb 27, 2024, has received widespread advanced praise. With fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in Prose (2024), PEN America, MacDowell, Rona Jaffe, and the NY State Summer Writer’s Institute, Deborah received her MFA from the NWP at the University of Iowa. Editor in Chief at River Styx magazine, she is the director of the MFA CW program at the Institute of American Indian Arts and splits her time between Saint Louis, MO, and Santa Fe, NM. She is a citizen of the Yuma Nation and Laguna Pueblo.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Gutiérrez is a critic, essayist, poet, performer, and educator. Their debut book, Brown Neon, garnered critical acclaim, being named one of the best books of 2022 by The New Yorker and listed among “The Best Art Books of 2022” by Hyperallergic. Notably, Brown Neon was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Prize for Best Lesbian Biography/Memoir in 2023 and received The Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction. They currently teach at the Oregon State University-Cascades Low Residency Creative Writing MFA Program and the IAIA Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing Program.

Layli Long Soldier is the author of the chapbook Chromosomory (2010) and the full-length collection Whereas (2017), which won the National Books Critics Circle award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. She was awarded a Whiting Writer’s Award in 2016. Most recently, Long Soldier was involved with the documentary, Lakota Nation versus The United States. Voicing the unspeakable with the lyrical power of two of her poems, “135 Xs” and “38,” she recited her work throughout the film. She also read sections of the actual treaties that underscore the dual power of words to also obfuscate. Long Soldier is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Fall 2023

Writing Now Reading Series: Myriam Gurba

Writing Now Reading Series: Myriam Gurba

Myriam Gurba is the author of Creep: Accusations and Confessions, an essay collection described by the Los Angeles Review of Books as “one of the best books of the decade.” Her memoir Mean was a New York Times Editor's Choice. Gurba’s writing has been published by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Believer, and many other publications. Along with Roberto Lovato and David Bowles, she is a co-founder of Dignidad Literaria, a grassroots organization that opposes white supremacy in the publishing industry. She lives in California and loves it. 

"Myriam Gurba is the most fearless writer in America. And is most generous and kind to those who have no champion, while setting fire to the towers of the villainous. Creep is another beautifully daring book. Long may she reign."

—Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Good Night, Irene

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Writing Now Reading Series: Henry Hoke

Writing Now Reading Series: Henry Hoke

Henry Hoke reading and reception. Hoke is the author of five books, most recently the novel Open Throat (MCD/FSG) and the memoir Sticker (Bloomsbury). He co-created the performance series Enter>text in Los Angeles, and edits humor at The Offing. He is also an alum of the MFA Creative Writing program at CalArts. "An indictment of human culture, narrated by a mountain lion Henry Hoke's novel follows an observant—and starving—cougar living in the Los Angeles hills surrounding the Hollywood sign ... Though many readers will label Open Throat unconventional, this act of ravishing and outlandish imagination should be the norm, not the exception. At its best, fiction can make the familiar strange in order to bring readers and our world into scintillating focus. Open Throat is what fiction should be." Marie Helene Bertino, The New York Times

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Writing Now Reading Series: Ronaldo Wilson

Writing Now Reading Series: Ronaldo Wilson

Ronaldo V. Wilson, PhD, is the author of Narrative of the Life of the Brown Boy and the White Man (University of Pittsburgh, 2008), winner of the 2007 Cave Canem Prize, and Poems of the Black Object (Futurepoem Books, 2009), winner of the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry in 2010. His latest books are Farther Traveler: Poetry, Prose, Other (Counterpath Press, 2015), finalist for a Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and Lucy 72 (1913 Press, 2018). Co-founder of the Black Took Collective, Wilson is also a mixed media artist, dancer, and performer.

With poets Dawn Lundy Martin and Duriel E. Harris, Wilson cofounded the performance-based Black Took Collective. Wilson is currently an associate professor of creative writing and literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and splits his time between Santa Cruz and Long Island, New York.

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Writing Now Reading Series: Jos Charles

Writing Now Reading Series: Jos Charles

Jos Charles is author of the poetry collections a Year & other poems (Milkweed Editions, 2022), feeld, a Pulitzer-finalist and winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series selected by Fady Joudah (Milkweed Editions, 2018), and Safe Space (Ahsahta Press, 2016). She is visiting faculty for UC RIverside’s Creative Writing Department and teaches as a part of Randolph College's low-residency MFA program. She resides in Long Beach, CA.

All readings take place on campus, followed by reception. Livestream available on CalArts' Creative Writing YouTube.

Event Details

For more information on the Writing Now Reading Series or for accessibility questions, please contact the Visiting Artist Coordinator at csartistcoordinator@calarts.edu