Visiting Writers Festival

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Each year, we invite a poet, a writer of fiction, and a nonfiction writer or journalist on campus.

The festival is a three-day event. Writers meet with students and faculty. They visit classes Wednesday afternoon and give a public reading in the evening. The writers visit morning and afternoon classes Thursday and then conduct master classes in their genres in the evening. Friday morning, the writers visit classes and participate in a student-moderated panel discussion.

We try to make the event a student-centered one: Students eat lunches and dinners with the writers, introduce the writers at the reading, participate in the master classes, and moderate the panel discussion. 

The 2018 writers include Lin Enger, author of the novels “The High Divide” and “Peace Like a River”; Linda Grover, author of several books, including “The Road Back to Sweetgrass” and “Onigamiising: Seasons of an Ojibwe Year”; and Sharon Chmielarz, author of several poetry collections including “The Other Mozart,” and “The Widow’s House.”

The Visiting Writers Festival will take place Wednesday, Oct. 3-Friday, Oct. 5, in Frida Nilsen Lounge, Fjelstad Hall. A public reading will be at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, and is free and open to the public.