Columbia University School of the Arts Writing Program presents several stimulating events and conversations throughout the year.
The Creative Writing Lecture Series, now in its sixth year, brings distinguished writers to Columbia for original talks on literary craft. The writers are diverse and brilliant, with a wide range of artistic strategies, and each talk turns into a short course on the challenges of making vital literary art. Among our past guests are Jennifer Egan, James Wood, Jonathan Lethem, Lydia Davis, Michael Chabon, Lydia Millett and Aimee Bender.
Nonfiction Dialogues, conducted by School of the Arts Professor Lis Harris and now in its eighth season, is a student-initiated evening series in which Professor Lis Harris interviews distinguished nonfiction writers about their work and careers. Past guests have included Ted Conover, Ian Frazier, Philip Gourevitch, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Oliver Sacks, Jean Strouse, Judith Thurman, Calvin Trillin and Tobias Wolff.
The annual Stalking the Essay Conference is part of a larger effort to establish Columbia University as a magnet for studying the essay’s history and current practice, and nurturing and propagating its future. The inaugural conference is organized by Nonfiction concentration Director, Phillip Lopate, and includes guests Ian Buruma, Katha Pollitt, Vivian Gornick, Patricia Hampl and Colm Tóibín, among others.
In addition, the program collaborates with other departments and centers at Columbia, as well as its own Literary Translation at Columbia (LTAC) program, on a host of events with leading writers, translators and literary professionals from around the world.