Writing

Richard Ford and Binnie Kirshenbaum at Selected Shorts

On March 13th, Faculty Richard Ford, author of the Pulitzer winning Independence Day and the new, acclaimed novel Canada will be featured on Selected Shorts at Symphony Space. He has selected one of Program Chair Binnie Kirshenbaum's stories to be read along with his own.

Writing Alum Karen Russell's "Vampires in the Lemon Grove" Published

Writing Program Alum Karen Russell's (SOA '06) second collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, was released by Knopf today.

Russell's debut novel, Swamplandia!, (Knopf 2011) a bildungsroman about family and grief yoked with swamp fable, was a Pulitzer finalist last year and was named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times.

Phillip Lopate | 'To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction' & 'Portrait Inside My Head: Essays'

Phillip Lopate, head of the Writing Program's Nonfiction concentration, will soon release two books: a guide to nonfiction writing and an essay collection. To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction and Portrait inside My Head: Essays, were both published by Free Press on February 12, 2013.

To Show and Tell, "encourages writers to go beyond the safe, facile, and sentimental," according to Booklist.

Victor LaValle: 'The Devil in Silver'

Upon the release of Victor LaValle's The Devil in Silver, fellow Columbia School of the Arts professor Gary Schteyngart pronounced LaValle a "master of literary horror."

Defiance: A Literary Benefit to Rebuild Red Hook

Join Writing faculty Sam Lipsyte, Phillip Lopate and Rivka Galchen ('06 SOA), as well as Kurt Andersen, Steve Earle, Chuck Klosterman, Philip Gourevitch, Robert Sullivan, Stew, Joseph O'Neill, Ben Katchor, Meghan O'Rourke, Deborah Baker and more at Littlefield venue for a night of literary readings to celebrate the history and future of Red Hook.

Richard Ford | 'Canada'

In an interview, Richard Ford was asked how he reconciled the two main voices of his story--that of a 15-year-old boy and the 60-something-year-old same person, looking back on his adolescence. Ford responded by saying that "...occasionally, I want to be able to soar, in essence. I want to be able to talk in the lingo of a 65-year-old man who has lived a full life and who is educated and smart, who has been a teacher and who can articulate things that that 15-year-old boy couldn't articulate."

Dinaw Mengestu ('05 SOA) Receives 2012 MacArthur Fellowship

Columbia University School of the Arts Writing Program alumnus Dinaw Mengestu (’05) has received a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Mengestu, a native of Ethiopia, explores the world of the African diaspora in America in his novels and nonfiction writings. The MacArthur Fellowship is a $500,000 grant for individuals who have shown exceptional creativity in their work and the promise to do more.

Kim Tingley ('09 SOA) Wins Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer's Award

Nonfiction writer and Columbia University School of the Arts alumna Kim Tingley ('09 SOA) will receive a 2012 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award, given annually to six women writers who demonstrate excellence and promise in the early stages of their careers. Celebrating its 18th year, the Rona Jaffe Awards have helped many women build successful writing careers by offering encouragement and financial support at a critical time

Poetry Society of America Awards Writing Alumni for 2012 Chapbook Fellowships

Poetry Society of America named Writing Program alumni Justin Boening ('11 SOA) and Cherry Pickman ('10 SOA) as recipients of 2012 Chapbook Fellowships. Each year four renowned poets select fellows to publish a chapbook by emerging poets who have not yet published a full-length volume of work.

The New York Review of Books Reissues Raymond Kennedy's 'Ride a Cockhorse'

Former faculty Raymond Kennedy's novel Ride a Cockhorse was reissued by The New York Review of Books' Classic series in June 2012. Originally published in 1991, the novel tells the story of a mild-mannered female loan officer run voraciously amok.

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Columbia University School of the Arts offers MFA degrees in Film, Theatre Arts, Visual Arts, and Writing, an MA degree in Film Studies, a joint JD/MFA degree in Theatre Management & Producing, and a PhD degree in Theatre History, Literature, and Theory.