News

By: Sean Wesen '22

 Writers House welcomes you back to Rutgers! We hope your summer was a relaxing one and that you got some writing done and read books that you love. Now that you're back, we are happy to tell you that we have exciting things planned for the coming weeks.

Join us for a conversation about Southern history, the natural world, Black religious experience, and photographic practice, in conjunction with the exhibition Meeting Tonight: Two South Carolina African American Camp Meetings. Artist Holly Lynton and Rutgers professor Maurice Wallace discuss their collaboration on this project, which started in 2017. Lynton's photographs of camp meetings in the sacred outdoors are accompanied by Wallace's homiletical meditations. Together, image and text convey an emotional history and materialize a prayer for its undefined future.

Holly Lynton is an award-winning fine arts photographer based in Massachusetts. Maurice Wallace is a Rutgers professor who has served two North Carolina African American congregations as lead minister.

A reception follows the talk.

On view at the Zimmerli through September 25, the exhibition is a collaboration among Holly Lynton, Maurice Wallace, and the Gospel Materialities Working Group in the Center for Cultural Analysis at Rutgers.

Save the date for the return of the Writers at Rutgers series. Writers at Rutgers is an exchange between well-known writers of diverse backgrounds and the Rutgers students and faculty. This semester you'll be able to hear from Joyce Carol Oates on Wednesday October 19, Raven Leilani on November 9, and Robert Jones Jr. on Wednesday March 1, 2023. More details to follow about both events.

Joyce Carol Oates is a prolific writer known for novels like A Garden of Earthly Delights, The Falls and Them. One of her books, Blonde, is now a Netflix series. S

We are also happy to announce the visit of award winning author Raven Leilani. Her book, Luster, was awarded the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Fiction, the 2020 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the 2020 John Leonard Prize at the National Book Critics Circle Awards, the 2021 Dylan Thomas Prize, and the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Don't miss the opportunity to talk with this lauded author on November 9.

Our final guest is Robert Jones Jr., author of The Prophets, a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction. He is a writer, and also the creator and curator of the social-justice social-media community Son of Baldwin, which has over 300,000 followers across platforms. Make sure to be here when he visits Rutgers on March 1.

This semester will also see the return of the fan favorite Inside the Writers House sessions. For those who don't know, Inside the Writers House is candid access to working writers from all over the world as beloved Writers House instructor (and former bookstore owner) Alex Dawson talks craft (via video chat) with some of the year's hottest pen pushers.

View video compilation of recent Inside the Writers House events here.

Last but not least, we have the Winter Creativity Showcase, a biannual event featuring the creative work of Rutgers English and creative writing students. Held in the winter and spring of each year, this event illustrates the many talents of our students in the categories of poetry, creative nonfiction, fiction, playwriting, and multimedia. Winning students will read from their work or show a sample of their video or podcast projects. Interested in sharing your work? Keep an eye out on our website and social media channels for more information.

As you can see, we have big things planned for this semester, so stay tuned...

For regular updates on current and future events be sure to follow @RU_WritersHouse on twitter, @Rutgers English on Facebook, and @ru_writershouse on Instagram.