News
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.”
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).
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.
In the debut novel by Writing alum Willa Rosenbach Morris '90, interwoven stories circle the roof of Sylvie's childhood home in Queens, NY.
Associate Professor Dorothea Lasky's most recent book of poems explores personhood and consciousness. Read more from Columbia News.
In her new book, A Dead White: An Argument Against White Paint, forthcoming from Scribner on October 13, 2026, Associate Professor of Writing Wendy S. Walters traverses art history, architecture, and consumer culture to examine the impact of white paint on our lived environment and in our collective imaginary. Beginning with a sudden unease caused by the white walls of her son's school, the book is anchored in Walters's immediate sensory experience, making her cultural interrogation one that recasts our choices and habits as individuals in a new light.
'The Going Is Forever' by Elizabeth Metzger '15 Is Forthcoming This September from Milkweed Editions
Tracking the dissolution of a marriage, a son's medical crisis, and the death of a father, The Going Is Forever is about holding on and letting go. Forthcoming from Milkweed Editions on September 15, 2026, the third collection of poetry by Adjunct Assistant Professor Elizabeth Metzger '15 has been deemed "oracular, crystalline, and utterly original" by Maggie Millner, the author of Couplets (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023).
Adjunct Assistant Professor Diksha Basu '14, author of Windfall (Ballantine Books, 2018) and The Destination Wedding (Ballantine Books, 2020), has just announced that her next novel, The Affairs of Mala Sen, is forthcoming with Harper Via in 2027. Set against the backdrop of a rapidly changing India, the novel follows a young widow living with her mother-in-law in New Delhi whose world unravels after she discovers her late husband's secrets.
Switzy, the third novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girls and The Guest, Emma Cline '13, has been longlisted for the 2026 Booker Prize. A portrait of human mortality, Switzy follows a retired business executive with a degenerative neurological disease as he is shepherded by his assistant to visit friends and family before his medically assisted death in Zurich.
Our Cavafy, a selection of new translations of Constantine P. Cavafy—widely considered the most distinguished Greek poet of the 20th century—by Constantine Contogenis '98 was released on July 10, 2026 by Finishing Line Press.
The Sensualist: Adventures in Pure Pleasure is the New York Times bestselling author and Professor Gary Shteyngart's first collection of essays—despite having appeared in Best American Essays nine times.
