READING
Prize Recipient Readings
Hanif Abdurraqib, Christopher Chen, Jen Hadfield, Sonya Kelly, Deirdre Madden, m. nourbeSe philip, Kathryn Scanlan, and Christina Sharpe
Our annual closing event returns, featuring short readings by the 2024 prize recipients.
m. nourbeSe philip hails from the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, and in all of her work the ocean and its depths play dramatic, if often tragic, roles. Jonathan Howard, a scholar of water himself, joins philip in a wide-ranging conversation about her life and career.
Hanif Abdurraqib and Yale’s varsity men’s basketball coach James Jones discuss Abdurraqib’s latest book, There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension.
Jen Hadfield’s legendary “Write with Me” workshop sessions have flourished online, providing writers from everywhere a chance to write alongside one of today’s most dynamic poets in a safe, productive space. On two consecutive days, Jen will bring these workshops to the festival tent. Don’t miss this opportunity to write alongside Jen and other poets. Bring a notebook and a pen!
WEATHER ALERT: In the case of a weather disruption, this event will be moved to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Mezzanine. Check our social media for updates.
Playwrights aren’t just playwrights anymore. Whether from opportunity or necessity, they often employ their gifts to bring stories to screens large and small. Both Christopher Chen and Sonya Kelly have experience with writer’s rooms, screenplays and the like. Yale Dean of Humanities Marc Robinson engages them on questions of both creative and practical import.
Deirdre Madden’s narratives often begin from a deceptively simple premise—the birthday of a friend; a chance meeting with a stranger—from which emerge complex and elegant meditations on art and experience, love and knowledge, memory and meaning. Professor and critic Anthony Domestico talks with Madden about her subtle and brilliant works of fiction.
Charles Sheeler based his 1934 painting American Interior on a photograph. He interwove this modernist vision with his response to the purity of forms and patterns in handmade objects from the American past, such as the simple Shaker designs in the box, textiles, and chair. Kathryn Scanlan and Karin Roffman will talk about objects, painting, photography, and the fine line between the imaginary and the real.
Christina Sharpe’s revolutionary Ordinary Notes is already changing the way we think about criticism, art, and everyday life. This intimate conversation moderated by Nana Adusei-Poku delves into the complexities, joys, and wonders of this extraordinary book.
The 2024 Windham-Campbell Prize recipients will be in residence on Yale’s campus from September 17-20 for a multi-day international literary festival during which they will share their work, engage in conversation on a range of subjects, and celebrate reading and the written word with the New Haven community.
Join us for coffee and treats from 10:00-10:30 AM, followed by fun, informal conversation with the prize recipients. Hosted by Sam Huber, senior editor at The Yale Review.
Sam Huber is a senior editor at The Yale Review and lecturer in English at Yale. Their essays and reviews have appeared in American Literature, Bookforum, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. They are writing a book about the feminist writer, artist, and activist Kate Millett.
Jen Hadfield’s Storm Pegs gives us a glimpse into her life as a poet in Shetland Islands. Poet Danielle Chapman’s memoir Holler tells of her military childhood in the south. In this wide-ranging conversation, the poets discuss poetry and life, and how they chose to write about them in prose.
