Creative Writing
Â鶹ÊÓƵ University has a vibrant creative writing community and a strong placement history among its graduates. Through the Creative Writing Workshop and the Annual Reading Series, Â鶹ÊÓƵ students have the opportunity to hear from and workshop with some of the finest contemporary writers. Past readers at Â鶹ÊÓƵ have included former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Charles Wright, Mark Jarman, Kate Daniels, Dave Smith, , Gregory Orr, , Li-Young Lee, , and .
Upcoming Event
33rd Annual Creative Writing Workshop Reading featuring Cornelius Eady
Thursday, February 26, 2026, 1 p.m., Grant Event Center, Salon 2
Book signing and reception at 2 p.m.
is the author of several books of poetry, including the critically acclaimed , which was nominated for an NAACP Image Award, , winner of the 1985 Lamont Prize from the Academy of American Poets, , which was nominated for the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, and his most recent collection . With poet Toi Derricote, Eady is cofounder of Cave Canem, a national organization for African American poetry and poets. He is Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, recipient of The Academy of American Poet's 2025 Wallace Stevens Award, an NEA Fellowship in Literature, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to Bellagio, Italy, and The Prairie Schooner Strousse Award. Eady has been a teacher for over twenty years, and is currently the Chair of Excellence in the English Department at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.