Writing News

News

Poetry alum Isabella DeSendi '17 has published her debut full-length poetry collection, Someone Else’s Hunger, with Four Way Books.

Triage, the newest book from Writing alum Claudia Rankine '93, will be making its way to bookshelves on August 4, 2026. 

Parul Kapur '89 has won the Pattis Family Foundation Creative Arts Book Award for her debut novel, Inside The Mirror (University of Nebraska Press, 2024).

First year Fiction student Shanley Jane Kearney will publish her debut novel, QUANT, with Simon and Schuster's Simon Six imprint in spring 2027.

Associate Professor Wendy S. Walters has been awarded an Independent Project Grant from the NYSCA and Architecture League. 

Adjunct Assistant Professor and Writing alum Miranda Mazariegos '25 has been awarded a 2025 Granum Foundation Translation Prize, awarded each year to support US-based translators as they complete a work of translation into English.

Elena Dudum '23 has been awarded a prestigious work-in-progress grant from the Whiting Foundation for her memoir, They Told Me The Way Back Home Would Be Beautiful. The book is forthcoming from One Signal Publishers.

Pulitzer prize winner, former poet laureate, Poetry alum, and current professor at Harvard, Tracy K. Smith '97 has published a new book, Fear Less: Poetry in Perilous Times, with Norton Press.

In collaboration with Columbia Artist/Teachers (CA/T), The Narrative Justice Project has selected three MFA Writing students—Britt MiddletonRachel Mikita, and Jessica Hoppe—as the inaugural New York Women’s Bar Association Foundation Justice Reads Fellows.

2024 National Book Award for Translation winner and Writing alum Lin King '22 has sold her debut novel, WEEB, to Henry Holt books. 

Writing alum Skyler Melnick '24 has been selected as a Center For Fiction / Susan Kamil 2026 Emerging Writer Fellow.

Writing alum Anika Jade Levy '23 has published her debut novel, Flat Earth, earlier this month with Catapult Books.

Student Series

Headshot of Lisa Cochran
From Here to There

by Lisa Cochran

A series in conversation with recent Writing alumni whose books are hitting the shelves, where we reflect on what the writing life looks like on the other side.

Headshot of Carlos Barragan
This Is Who We Are

by Carlos Barragán

A series featuring Columbia School of the Arts’ professors, covering careers, pedagogy, and art-making.

Headshot of Jessica Shohfi
Past Lives

by Jessie Shohfi

A series featuring Columbia writers who began their professional lives on different career paths.