News Archive

Burlington, Vermont's premiere performing arts center, the Flynn, is partnering with the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize to publish new 10-minute plays and monologues on the state of American democracy by past winners of the prize—the oldest and largest playwriting prize honoring women+ writing for the English-speaking theatre. The civic initiative will conclude with a marathon live performance of the resulting work—Women+ on the Edge of Democracy—at the Flynn this October.

Assistant Professor of Visual Arts Adama Delphine Fawundu '18 is featured in a new exhibition, Never The Same River, at the Ford Foundation Gallery in New York City.

Winner of the 2024 International Berkshire Prize and named one of Debutiful’s “2026 Debut Poetry Collections You Need to Read,” Song in Tammuz by Avia Tadmor ’18 is forthcoming on October 1, 2026, from Tupelo Press.

Second-year Writing student Selena Aiyla has just been named the Managing Editor at Office Magazine, a role second to the Editor-In-Chief and Founder of the magazine.

Columbia alums and their affiliated shows were well-represented at both the Primetime and Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Let's break it down.

Playwright, librettist, and dramaturg Mo Holmes '26 has been awarded the 2026 Yale Drama Prize for her play Amanda. Holmes’s play was selected by Pulitzer- and Tony-winning playwright and current Yale faculty member Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Past recipients of this prize include playwright and Northwestern faculty member Ariel Stess and playwright Jen Silvers.

The Venice Film Festival has announced the 2026 winners. Among the projects awarded includes Quelques Instants De Bonheur (A Few Moments Of Happiness) directed by Barnard alum Shaden Safieddine Tazi (BC '22).

The Center for Fiction recently announced the longlist for its 2026 First Novel Prize, which includes three Columbia University alums and faculty: Fiction alum Woody Brown '24; Undergraduate Creative Writing Adjunct Assistant Professor Giada Scodellaro; and Columbia College alum Stacey Yu (CC '20).

Dark Hollow, a new horror film directed by Film alum Daniel Byers '22, has been acquired and distributed by the independent film distribution company Brainstorm Media, with a limited theatrical release starting on September 4, 2026. In addition to Byers as director, the project was assistant directed by Will Pinke '22 and line produced by Fernando Gonzalez Ortiz '22.

Several Columbia Alums are set to have their films screened at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) this year.

Contemporary Hominin, a solo exhibition by Visual Arts alum Wenfei Quan '25, is on view September 11–October 10, 2026 at TaThaTa Gallery on the Lower East Side.

Florin Serban '08 took home the Golden Leopard, the top prize in the international competition, at the 79th Locarno Film Festival for his film You Don’t Belong Here.

In The Sound of Burning: A Mother, a Daughter, a Murder, forthcoming from the University of Georgia Press on October 1, Writing alum Kristi D. Osorio '17 examines the cultural obsession with true crime through a personal lens. The author’s debut opens with then-fifteen-year-old Osorio in her bedroom, the night her mother murdered her grandmother. Through a blend of memoir and criticism, Osorio brings a human perspective to an often-sensationalized narrative, reclaiming her own “coming of age in the shadows of violence.”

Anna Ting Möller '23 was awarded a 2026 Franklin Furnace FUND for Performance Art for her performance piece Dissolve and Coagulate—A Visual Inquiry into Abjection. Since 1985, the Franklin Furnace FUND has awarded grants to early-career artists to prepare for major performance art works in New York. Franklin Furnace celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, along with the 41st anniversary of its FUND for Performance Art.

Several Columbia filmmakers are preparing for their films to screen at the 2026 New York Film Festival, which will run from September 25 through October 12, 2026.

In August The National Gallery of Art announced the acquisition of notable historical and contemporary works including Puerto Rican Pieta II (2006), a painting by Director of Graduate Studies, Concentration Head of Painting, and Assistant Professor of Visual Arts David Antonio Cruz. 

Ben Shirken, second year Sound Art student, has been made a finalist in the 2026 Lumen Prize, a $30,000 award that "exists to support artists exploring the relationship between art and technology in all its forms."

Columbia Engineering hosted its first World Leaders Forum with Endeavor Greece and the School of the Arts, bringing together leaders in government, global development, technology, and art to discuss AI's impact on people and culture. Read more from Columbia Engineering.

2026 marks the National Book Award's 77th year, and several Columbia writers are included in the longlist in both fiction and nonfiction. The National Book Award, founded in 1950 to celebrate the best of American writing, is considered the pinnacle of literary achievement in the United States and gives prizes in five different categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, Translated Literature, and Young People’s Literature. Past recipients of the awards include writers like Ralph Ellison, William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, Toni Morrison, and Philip Roth. 

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF), the not-for-profit foundation of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), has selected Goldie E. Patrick '23 as the 2026-2027 Lloyd Richards New Futures Resident Artist.

Five Playwriting alums have their short plays included in Methuen Drama’s new anthology, The Future is Short, edited by Mitchell Thomas, award-winning actor, director, and professor at Westmount College. The anthology features 20 short plays of various genres with a run time under 15 minutes, “written by some of the most exciting contemporary voices in American theatre.” These inventive, resonant plays are catered to college and high school students developing their craft. 

Jinwoo Chong '21, author of the award-winning novel Flux, will release his third novel, Club Nine Tails, with Random House in March 2027–a novel about family, reconciliation, and a cross-country adventure.

In Masquerade, a new immersive Off-Broadway production directed by Theatre alum Diane Paulus '97, audiences get to step into the world of the Phantom of the Opera. The show is set in a haunted opera house and follows the young soprano Christine Daaé, being tutored by the titular Phantom. Audiences are split into six groups, each guided through multiple interactive rooms and floors by a different pair of actors playing the lead duo. 

Columbia University School of the Arts is excited to announce a new collaboration with The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).