Campus Stories - Creative Writing
Stanford Professor Chang-rae Lee on “Writing Across and Through Gender” at the Clayman Institute’s Artist’s Salon
How does a writer imbue his characters with a gender, gendered behaviors and attributes, that seem authentic, and not stereotypical, to the reader? How do the social aspects of gender inform the fictional universe of his novel? For award-winning novelist and Stanford professor Chang-rae Lee, the ultimate freedom in writing across and through gender means…
Stanford lecturer earns fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts recently awarded AUSTIN SMITH, a Jones lecturer in the English Department at Stanford, with a creative writing fellowship. Austin Smith Smith, a former Wallace Stegner fellow, was one of 36 writers nationwide who received the 2018 Creative Writing Fellowship, according to the National Endowment for the Arts. The annual fellowship…
20.8% of the 2017 MacArthur Fellows were Stanford guest artists within the last year
Stanford congratulates the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” winners who recently spent time on campus engaging with students, faculty and the public. Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY, whose work tells elaborate and delicate stories of her life, was in conversation with Jodi Roberts, the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator for Modern and…
Fall quarter guest artists
One of the ways that Stanford is creating opportunities for meaningful engagement with the arts for students and the university community is by inviting over 100 artists each year to campus to create, perform and discuss their work. This fall quarter the roster of guest artists includes comedian and political commentator Samantha Bee in conversation…
Stanford Honors in the Arts capstone program evolves with a new Mellon grant
Stanford University has been awarded an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant to support the development of a new undergraduate, interdisciplinary program in the arts to be administered by Stanford Arts Institute. Honors in the Arts students present Bacchae, an immersive theatrical experience utilizing locations across the Stanford campus. (Image credit: Kristen Stipanov) The $400,000 grant provides support for…
On writing and identity: an interview with author and professor Chang-rae Lee
In the fall of 2016, acclaimed author Chang-rae Lee joined Stanford as the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor in the English Department and Creative Writing Program. He was previously at Princeton University as a creative writing professor and director of their Program in Creative Writing. Lee moved with his family from South Korea…
2017 Student Submitted Artwork
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Author Junot Díaz promotes community activism, fight against oppression in lecture at Stanford
Pulitzer Prize-winning author and activist Junot Díaz encouraged people of color, undocumented immigrants and other minority group members to stick together and help each other during a turbulent political climate as part of his lecture Wednesday evening at Stanford. “We must steal fire because we must transform this world that conserves and hoards fire for…
Good books, like teachers, acknowledge children’s lives, says author Jacqueline Woodson
In her National Book Award-winning verse autobiography, Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacqueline Woodson writes that she was a slow reader, an exasperating student who sometimes missed the point of a teacher’s lesson. Yet by age 7, Woodson knew that she wanted to be a writer. Those two facts seem contradictory but in fact anchor her writing…
First-year student pens stories of children in Syria
Syria’s civil war has taken a devastating toll on children. Stanford freshman EMMA ABDULLAH puts a young, human face on that tragedy with her book, The Blue Box, which details the plight of Syrian children during the country’s six-year civil war. Published in 2014, the work is a collection of short stories and poems, and…
Stanford alum’s debut novel gets National Book Critics recognition
The reaction on YAA GYASI‘s Facebook page to the news that her debut novel Homegoing was the 2016 recipient of the National Book Critic Circle’s John Leonard Prize was swift: 379 likes; 22 comments; and 19 shares. And that was before dawn. The John Leonard Prize was established to recognize outstanding first books in any…
Harry Elam appointed vice president for the arts and senior vice provost for education
Harry Elam, vice provost for undergraduate education at Stanford since 2010, has been appointed to two additional key leadership roles in the Office of the President and Provost. He will now oversee the non-departmental arts programs as well as direct and coordinate critical efforts in education, President Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Provost-designate Persis Drell announced Monday….
The NEA announced that Edgar Kunz, Stegner Fellow in Poetry, is to receive an individual creative writing fellowship
Dec. 13, 2016 — Today, the National Endowment for the Arts announced that Edgar Kunz, a second-year Stegner Fellow in Poetry, is one of 37 writers to receive an FY 2017 individual creative writing fellowship of $25,000. “The NEA has an excellent record of supporting writers who have gone on to have impressive literary careers,”…
Hoover Institution acquires a collection of Joseph Brodsky’s works
When the Soviet Union exiled the Russian poet JOSEPH BRODSKY in 1972, he already had a few friends waiting for him in the West. One of them, DIANA MYERS, would remain a confidante until the Nobel poet’s death in 1996. The London home she shared with her husband, the translator ALAN MYERS, became his English…
Lightning-Bolt Laureate
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA sits in a vacant suite of offices at California State University in Fresno. Around him, the bland, sand-colored furniture, circa 1990s, has been stripped of phones and computers—it’s the business equivalent of a ghost town. But not for long. Herrera, an emeritus professor here and at UC-Riverside, is also the U.S. poet…
Medieval songs reflect humor in amorous courtships, Stanford scholar finds
Medieval courtship brings to mind images of chivalrous knights worshipping fair damsels, expressing their love for their ladies in refined and poetic language. But courtship did not play out this way for all medieval knights. Neidhart von Reuental (1190-1237), a medieval German poet, composed songs about a fictional knight whose amorous pursuits were often obstructed…
