The MFA Program in Writing proudly offers the Writers Series that features a continuum of talented writers who are scheduled throughout the academic year to come to CCA to share their experience and insights.

While these events comprise the Friday Seminar course requirement for all first-year students, all events are free and open to the public -- especially all interested CCA community members.

While the work that is shared each week offers a range as wide as the imagination, the professional caliber of the writers who join the Writers Series is unparalleled.

This is a truly one-of-a-kind experience for our budding writers, and for the college at large.

Fall 2012 Guest Speakers

Jess Walter
Friday, September 7
National Book Award finalist and Edgar Award winner

W. S. Di Piero
Friday, September 14
2012 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize recipient!

Cheryl Strayed
Thursday, September 27, 7-9 p.m., Timken Lecture Hall
New York Times bestselling author / Oprah Book Club 2.0
(Copresented by the Graduate Studies Lecture Series -- note special day, time, location)
Watch the video »

Aimee Phan & Anita Amirrezvani
Friday, October 5
MFA Writing chair and faculty read from their award-winning books

Lauren Mullen
Friday, October 19
A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow and professor of English at Louisiana State University

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
Friday, October 26
Heralded by the New Yorker as one of "20 under 40" to follow!

Michael Nye & Opal Palmer Adisa
Friday, November 2
Nye, author of the forthcoming short-story collection Strategies Against Extinction, was a finalist for the Katherine Anne Porter Prize in fiction and was nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Adisa is an award-winning poet and prose writer with 14 titles to her credit, including the novel It Begins with Tears (1997)

Carol Edgarian
Friday, November 9 -- Special time: 5:30 p.m.
Her novels include the New York Times bestseller Three Stages of Amazement and the international bestseller Rise the Euphrates.

Faith Adiele
Friday, November 16
Faith Adiele is the author of Meeting Faith (W.W. Norton & Co.), a travel memoir about becoming Thailand’s first black Buddhist nun. Meeting Faith received the PEN Beyond Margins Award for Best Memoir of 2004.

About the Featured Guests

To learn more about these impressive writers, either select by name, above, or visit the Writers Series events calendar. Each event listing features the writer's headshot and his or her literary accomplishments as part of the bio.

Note: The event calendar link lists only the remaining events for the current term, but we encourage you to check out the Writers Series Archive to see the amazing pool of writers who've previously visited CCA.

Unless otherwise noted in the event listing, all Writing Series events are held at the CCA Writers’ Studio, located at 195 De Haro (at 15th Street), from 3:30 to 5 p.m. All events are free and open to the public, yet each event is offered on a first-come, first-served basis, and events fill up quickly.

Writers Series Calendar

Our Google Calendar gives a convenient look at upcoming Writers Series events.

We hope to see you at the next MFA Program in Writing Writers Series event!