The UTSA Creative Writing Reading Series was inaugurated in 1983 when Carolyn Forché read on a Friday afternoon to a room of 100 people. Over the years the series has hosted such writers as Mary Oliver, Ernest Gaines, Tobias Wolff, Karen Tei Yamashita, Evie Shockley, Denise Levertov, Alberto Ríos, Pat Mora, Diane Wakoski, Edward Hirsch, and many other poets and fiction writers who not only give public readings but also visit classes and meet with students about their writing. We’ve had as many as twelve readings by visiting writers in a year but have settled on three or four annually as an ideal number. This reading series is made possible through the generosity of our Donors.
Events
CARLOS HAGERMAN’s “Home is Somewhere Else” - September 21 | 4:00 PM
September 21 | 4:00 PM | UTSA Main Campus - McKinney Humanities Building 2.01.10
Join the UTSA Film and Media program as a part of celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month in the screening of Home Is Somewhere Else. A 2022 Mexican-American adult animated documentary film written and directed by Carlos Hagerman & Jorge Villalobos. It tells three stories of migrant families who share their fears, hopes, and emotions about what it means to live undocumented in the United States. There will be a Q&A with the filmmaker Carlos Hagerman on September 21 from 4 PM-6 PM, along with a "Storytelling to Create Empathy" masterclass on September 22 from 12 PM -1 PM.
October 6 | 7:00 PM | UTSA Southwest Campus - (Coates Chapel)
KALI FAJARDO-ANSTINE is the nationally bestselling author of the novel Woman of Light and the widely acclaimed short story collection Sabrina & Corina, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of an American Book Award. She is a 2023 Guggenheim Fellow and the 2021 recipient of the Addison M. Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Fajardo-Anstine is the Endowed Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University and is from Denver, Colorado.
February 2 | 7:00 PM | UTSA Main Campus – University Room (Business Building 2.06.04 )
ANDREW PORTER is the author of the story collections The Disappeared (Knopf) and The Theory of Light and Matter (Vintage) and the novel In Between Days (Knopf). A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has received a Pushcart Prize, a James Michener/Copernicus Fellowship, and the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in One Story, The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, Narrative, The Southern Review, and on Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. Currently, he teaches fiction writing and directs the creative writing program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
Discussion and Q&A with Andrew Porter open to everyone on February 2 from 11:30-1:00 in the Anaqua Room (2.03.08) of the Student Union
April 19 | 7:00 PM | UTSA Main Campus – University Room (Business Building 2.06.04)
JASMINNE MENDEZ is a best-selling Dominican-American poet, translator, playwright and award winning author of several books for children and adults. Including the middle grade novel in verse Aniana del Mar Jumps In (Dial). Her debut picture book Josefina’s Habichuelas (Arte Publico Press, 2021) was the Writer’s League of Texas Children’s Book Discovery Prize Winner. She is an MFA graduate of the creative writing program at the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University and a University of Houston alumni. She is the Program Director for the literary arts non-profit Tintero Projects and she lives and works in Houston, TX.
