Amanda Jones has been an educator for 23 years, at the same middle school she attended as a child. She has served as President of the Louisiana Association of School

Christopher Merrill has published eight collections of poetry, including Watch Fire, for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets, and On the Road to Lviv;

In this panel, writers will discuss place and setting as key in many kinds of writing. They will explore the following questions: How do you convey a sense of place

Jennifer Croft won the Man Booker International Prize for her translation from Polish of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights. She is the author of Homesick, a Saroyan Prize winner, and numerous pieces

Josh Cowen is Professor of Education Policy at Michigan State University, and an author on topics related to education politics, school choice, and culture wars in the United States. In

Marguerite (Maggie) Sheffer is a writer who lives in New Orleans. She is a Professor of Practice at Tulane University, where she teaches courses in design thinking and speculative fiction

A discussion on film criticism and writing, featuring accomplished film writers Jonathan Rosenbaum (Chicago Reader) and Marya E. Gates (RogerEbert.com) moderated by Ariana Martinez of Little Village.  

Elizabeth Willis is the author of Liontaming in America (New Directions, 2024), a hybrid work engaged with American belief and relationship structures, theatre, activism, and film. The collection is on the

Sometimes in life, you find yourself lost in an utterly dark place. When poet and author Jarod K. Anderson found himself trapped by a deep and lonely depression, he turned to the woods, literally. In his new book, Something in the Woods Loves You, Anderson explores

Born and raised in Reno, Nevada, Willy Vlautin is the author of six novels and is the founder of the bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines. Vlautin started writing stories

In this panel, writers will discuss how the current political landscape affects their work and the role politics plays in their writing. Featuring: Hatice Açıkgöz (International Writing Program), Ari Berman,

A novel-poem taking us to the Pulitzer-prize winning poet Forrest Gander's birthplace in the Mojave Desert and his current northern California home, where tumultuous memories coalesce with the present. Mojave