Writing Now, Reading Now Series

Spring 2025

Ladee Hubbard

Tuesday, March 11, Reception at 5:30/Reading at 6

Ladee Hubbard is Wichita State’s 2024-25 visiting distinguished writer. She is the author of two novels: The Talented Ribkins, which received the 2017 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction and the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and The Rib King. The Last Suspicious Holdout, her collection of short stories, was published in 2022 and was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize.  Her short fiction and nonfiction have been published in The Times' Literary Supplement, Guernica, Oxford American and The New York Times, among other publications. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Award, The Berlin Prize and a Radcliffe Fellowship. She has also received fellowships from MacDowell, The American Library in Paris, and the Rockefeller Foundation, among other organizations. She received a BA in English from Princeton University, a MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Wisconsin, Madison and a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from the University of California, Los Angeles. She will be in residence February 17-March 14, 2025, teaching advanced undergraduates and graduate students in the fiction tutorial.

Michael Prior

Tuesday, April 8, Reception at 5:30/Reading at 6

Michael Prior is Wichita State’s 2024-25 visiting emerging poet. His most recent book of poems, Burning Province (McClelland & Stewart/Penguin Random House, 2020), won the Canada-Japan Literary Award and the BC & Yukon Book Prizes' Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. He is also the author of Model Disciple (Véhicule Press, 2016), which was named one of the best books of the year by the CBC.

Michael is the recipient of fellowships from the Amy Clampitt Residency, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the Jerome Foundation, and Hawthornden Literary Retreat. His poems have appeared in magazines and anthologies across North America and the UK, including Poetry, The New Republic, Narrative Magazine, Sewanee Review, Kenyon Review, Crazyhorse, PN Review, Ambit, Global Poetry Anthology, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day series. 

Michael holds graduate degrees from Cornell University and the University of Toronto and is an Assistant Professor of English and ACM Mellon Faculty Fellow at Macalester College. He currently edits the Véhicule Press poetry imprint, Signal Editions. He will be in residence March 24-April 18, 2025, teaching advanced undergraduates and graduate students in the poetry tutorial.

MFA Graduates

Saturday, May 17, Reception at 2/Reading at 2:30

Fall 2024

Adam Scheffler

Tuesday, September 10, Reception at 5:30, Reading at 6

Adam Scheffler joined Wichita State’s creative writing faculty in August as an assistant professor. Adam is the author of two books of poems: Heartworm, which won the 2021 Moon City Press Prize, and A Dog’s Life, which won the 2016 Jacar Press Book Contest. He grew up in Berkeley, California, received his MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and his PhD in English from Harvard. Most recently he taught in the Harvard College Writing Program.

Holly Wilson

Wednesday, October 30, Reception at 5:30, Reading at 6

Holly Wilson’s novel, Kittentits, was published by Gillian Flynn Books in 2024. Her short stories have appeared in Narrative, Redivider, Northwest Review, Short Story, New Stories from the South, and elsewhere. She received an MFA from Wichita State University and was a Kingsbury Fellow at Florida State University, where she received a PhD in creative writing. She grew up in Kansas and currently makes her home in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, where she lives with her son. She’s an associate professor of creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

Thank you to our program partners:

Department of English, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Ulrich Museum, and Watermark Books & Cafe