Upcoming Events
- Cost:
- Free; only open to TXST MFA students
- Contact:
- Name: Bianca Alyssa Pérez
Email: mfinearts@txstate.edu - Campus Sponsor:
- Main TXST calendar
Tim O’Brien is the author of nine books, including the universally acclaimed books, The Things They Carried, and Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1978 National Book Award. His other novels include If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home; Northern Lights; The Nuclear Age; Tomcat in Love; July, July; and In the Lake of the Woods. His most recent book is the memoir Dad's Maybe Book. He was a major contributor to Ken Burns’ renowned PBS documentary on the Vietnam War (2017), where his writing was featured. In 2012, O'Brien received both the Texas Writer Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation's Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award.
Description of workshop:
A workshop led by Tim O’Brien will have students read and discuss a maximum of 2 unconventional short stories per workshop. Thirty to forty-five minutes of every workshop will also be dedicated to conceptual free writing, outside any project the students are currently working on. TXST MFA poetry and fiction students are welcome to send their short story in for consideration.
Description of workshop:
A workshop led by Tim O’Brien will have students read and discuss a maximum of 2 unconventional short stories per workshop. Thirty to forty-five minutes of every workshop will also be dedicated to conceptual free writing, outside any project the students are currently working on. TXST MFA poetry and fiction students are welcome to send their short story in for consideration.
- Location:
- Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center; 508 Center St. Kyle, TX 78640
- Cost:
- Free; only open to TXST MFA students
- Contact:
- Name: Bianca Alyssa Pérez
Email: mfinearts@txstate.edu - Campus Sponsor:
- TXST MFA in Creative Writing
Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words, Fuel, and You & Yours (a best-selling poetry book of 2006). She is also the author of Mint Snowball, Never in a Hurry, I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are you Okay? Tales of Driving and Being Driven (essays); Habibi and Going Going (novels for young readers); Baby Radar, Sitti's Secrets, and Famous (picture books) and There Is No Long Distance Now (a collection of very short stories).
Other works include several prize-winning poetry anthologies for young readers, including Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems & Paintings from the Middle East, What Have You Lost?, and Transfer. Her collection of poems for young adults entitled Honeybee won the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category. Her novel for children, The Turtle of Oman, was chosen both a Best Book of 2014 by The Horn Book and a 2015 Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association. The Turtle of Oman was also awarded the 2015 Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature. She was named Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2019, awarded the 2019 Lon Tinkle Award by the Texas Institute of Letters, and elected into The American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2021. Her most recent books are Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (2018; Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins) and The Tiny Journalist (2019; BOA Editions).
Description of workshop:
A workshop led by Naomi Shihab Nye where MFA students are asked to bring poems to the session (they can be based on her prompt or not). Students will then critique and provide helpful suggestions to each other as Naomi leads and gives her insight. TXST MFA poetry and fiction students are welcome to send their poems in for consideration.
Other works include several prize-winning poetry anthologies for young readers, including Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems & Paintings from the Middle East, What Have You Lost?, and Transfer. Her collection of poems for young adults entitled Honeybee won the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category. Her novel for children, The Turtle of Oman, was chosen both a Best Book of 2014 by The Horn Book and a 2015 Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association. The Turtle of Oman was also awarded the 2015 Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature. She was named Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2019, awarded the 2019 Lon Tinkle Award by the Texas Institute of Letters, and elected into The American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2021. Her most recent books are Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (2018; Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins) and The Tiny Journalist (2019; BOA Editions).
Description of workshop:
A workshop led by Naomi Shihab Nye where MFA students are asked to bring poems to the session (they can be based on her prompt or not). Students will then critique and provide helpful suggestions to each other as Naomi leads and gives her insight. TXST MFA poetry and fiction students are welcome to send their poems in for consideration.
- Location:
- Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center
508 Center Street, Kyle, Texas 78640 - Cost:
- Free
- Contact:
- Bianca Alyssa Pérez; mfinearts@txstate.edu
- Campus Sponsor:
- TXST MFA in Creative Writing
Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. He is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, among others. His first novel, We the Animals, was a national bestseller and adapted into a feature film. He lives in Los Angeles and is an associate professor of English at UCLA.
- Location:
- The Wittliff Collections
- Cost:
- Free
- Contact:
- Bianca Alyssa Pérez; mfinearts@txstate.edu
- Campus Sponsor:
- English Department
Saúl Hernández’s first book, How to Kill a Goat and Other Monsters, was a finalist for The Wisconsin Poetry Series. He is the winner of both the 2022 Pleiades Prufer Poetry Prize and the 2021 Two Sylvias Press Chapbook Prize. His poems have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and Best of The Net and is forthcoming or featured in Split This Rock, Quarterly West, PANK Magazine, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
- Location:
- Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center
508 Center Street, Kyle, Texas 78640 - Cost:
- Free
- Contact:
- Bianca Alyssa Pérez; mfinearts@txstate.edu
- Campus Sponsor:
- Department of English
Ben Lerner is the author of several books of poetry, most recently The Lights. He is also the author of the novels Leaving Atocha Station, 10:04, and The Topeka School, as well as a book-length essay, The Hatred of Poetry. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award and received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, among other honors. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College.