New Opportunity for Students at 2024-2025 Visiting Writer Reading Series
By Zoe Perkins ’25
Whitman’s Visiting Writer Reading Series (VWRS) is back for the 2024-2025 academic year with a unique new opportunity for students.
The series allows students to connect with professional writers from various fields and recognize the career opportunities available for those interested in writing. It also provides a dedicated space to appreciate the craft of writing and everything that goes into publishing a piece.
Kicking Off the Series
The first event of the academic year featured award-winning poet and essayist Lia Purpura.
Purpura has spent many years teaching aspiring writers at various workshops and conferences, as well as in the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction MFA program. She also served as Writer in Residence at The University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Loyola University. Purpura has published five poetry collections and five essay collections, including “On Looking,” which was a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. Her other awards and accomplishments include four Pushcart Prizes and fellowships with the Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, the Fulbright Foundation and the Maryland State Arts Council.
She discussed her favorite topics to write about and read excerpts of one of her recent works, “All The Fierce Tethers.” The gathered crowd seemed to hold their breath, held captive by her words as she read.
“Common stuff touched in the course of a day—each door’s glass knob, cool even in summer; my grandmother’s wooden spoons worn smooth as bone by decades of stirring. All the fierce tethers to all the fierce moments—they all matter. They matter extremely. To me. To the pinpoint I’ve become.
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Excerpt from “All the Fierce Tethers”
Afterwards, Purpura signed copies of her two most recent collections for the audience. She also noted that library staff brought books that she herself used as inspiration for her writing and praised the thought behind organizing this event.
“It’s important for readers to see writers present in the flesh, to recognize that a live person wrote what they’re reading, with a life beyond the piece,” Purpura says.
She also pointed to the event’s community-building aspects, saying she appreciated the chance to present her work in such a public space with others who can ask questions and push each other to think differently.
Expanded Learning Opportunities
This year, Penrose Library staff is hosting a table after each VRWS event to help situate the writers’ works in a larger literary context by providing related texts and writing resources. The library has previously partnered with the VWRS to put out visiting writer displays, but this year they wanted to strengthen library integration.
Emily Pearson, Instruction Coordinator and Outreach Librarian, says this will greatly benefit students. “We see this as a way to promote deeper reading and literary curiosity.”
Attendees also have the chance to purchase copies of the featured writer’s most recent publication, get it signed and chat with the featured writer.
More On The Series
The VWRS will include seven visiting writers this academic year over the course of six events, as well as one event each semester for current creative writing students to share their work. The VWRS is sponsored by the college’s Department of English, the Office of the Provost and Dean of the Faculty, the Lawrence Parke Murphy and Robert Goldstein Trust, and individual donors.