Each semester we bring a writer to campus to read and to be interviewed by an MFA alum. We have hosted poets, fiction and nonfiction writers, playwrights, and graphic-novelists. Each reading is followed by a Q & A then a book-signing. This lively series allows our community to engage with writers from in and outside the New York area. Free and open to the public.

Held on several evenings during the fall semester, this series of informal discussions of literary texts is designed for the whole MFA community, both faculty and students. Two or three texts are assigned during the summer for everyone to read. (For instance, recently, we assigned The Atlantic Monthly Fiction Issue, Tory Dent’s book of poetry HIV Mon Amour and The Best American Essays.)  Led by one or two faculty members, the discussions are meant to engage everyone, and to explore matters of craft, form and language in the texts.

Each year we invite several esteemed literary translators to speak about the theory and practice of translation. Previous programs have shown writers the challenge and pleasure peculiar to this field and in doing so, we encourage translation from any one in the Program as a means to experiment and to expand their own creativity. The year closes with a reading by the student or alum who has won the QC MFA Loose Translation Award for a book of original translation that is published by Hanging Loose Press.

Our “Loose Translation Prize,” a competition offered to all current and former Queens College MFA students, awards publication by Brooklyn based Hanging Loose Press of a full-length translation book from any language and in any genre.

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Armstrong Literary is a journal based in Queens: a borough with a multiplicity of cultures, languages, and experiences. Rather than present a single unified voice, we aim to express the varied landscapes around us as well as our own internal terrain. Founded by students and faculty of the Queens College MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, Armstrong Literary is interested in work that pushes boundaries –– on an emotional level as well as a linguistic one –– poems, stories, translations, and fragments that scatter, ground, croon, and devastate.

https://armstronglit.org

Under Construction

This series is one of our most special events. Each semester, on a series of evenings, writers come to read and talk about their most recent book with our students in a salon-style setting. The guest typically reads then takes questions and comments from the audience, all of whom have read the book. Some of our most fascinating and still on-going discussions have been generated during these conversations. We have had readings by poets and fiction writers and playwrights and children’s book authors as well. We’re looking forward to next year’s presentations!

A new Queens College series produced by Kupferberg Center for the Arts, the Department of English, the Provost’s Office, and the Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities. Curated and hosted by QC professor and author Vanessa Perez-Rosario.

This series builds on the former Evening Readings program, which was founded in 1976 by Queens College Professor Joseph Cuomo and featured award-winning authors on campus for readings and moderated discussion and Q&As with audiences. Past writers include Arthur Miller, Doris Lessing, Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Edward Albee, E.L Doctorow, Colum McCann, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jhumpa Lahiri, John Cheever, Mona Simpson, Zadie Smith, Susan Sontag, Jonathan Safran Foer, Junot Diaz, and Tom Wolfe, among many other prominent authors.

For more information, see the department’s Off the Page series page and the Kupferberg Center for the Arts series page.

One of the ways we keep in contact with our students and the wider community is through postings of news and events on our MFA bulletin blog. To read about our current readings and talks, go to:http://mfabulletinblog.qc.cuny.edu/.

A huge advantage for our faculty and students is our location: New York City, the capital of culture and publishing! Writers the world over vie for access to the resources that we have at hand. Beyond the Queens College campus events, there are a multitude of readings, panels, discussions, and employment possibilities. On campus, we are thrilled to co-host programs with Cave Canem, Kundiman, PEN America, Poetry Society of America, and others.

Imagine hearing tape recordings of Louis Armstrong and wife Lucille Wilson chatting over cocktails in their living room; or Louis and band members during a set. Imagine handling his letters and hand-decorated boxes containing photographs.What might this access inspire? Would you write about Satchmo himself or maybe one of your own family members?

Queens College is home to unusual archives that offer special opportunities for creative writers. For ten years the MFA Program has partnered with the Louis Armstrong House Musuem in a residency program. The residencies offer several MFA students the chance to work in the Armstrong archive on campus and to produce original writing prompted by Armstrong’s life and work. A modest stipend is included. In May, the writing is presented in a public reading at the Armstrong House in Corona, Queens.

Other campus archives include Civil Rights Archive, Art Books Archive, and a Zine & Chapbook Archive.

Off campus but still a part of CUNY: The Graduate Center’s project Lost & Found that explores and publishes central figures associated with American poetry–including the likes of June Jordan, Edward Dorn, and William S Burroughs.