Please join us for an amazing evening of storytelling, poetry, and refreshments! This event showcases FOUR members of our creative writing program, each reading from their most recent book or collection.

Rachel Jamison Webster is the author of Benjamin Banneker and Us: Eleven Generations of an American Family (Henry Holt, 2023). She has also published four books of poetry—Mary is a River, which was a finalist for the 2014 National Poetry Series; September; The Endless Unbegun; and The Sea Came Up & Drowned, which includes erasure poetry and Rachel’s visual art. Rachel’s poems and essays often appear in anthologies and journals, including Poetry, Tin House, and The Yale Review. She is a professor in the Northwestern Creative Writing Program.

Juan Martinez is the author of Extended Stay (U of Arizona Press, 2022) and Best Worst American, a story collection published by Small Beer Press and the winner of the Neukom Institute Award for Debut Speculative Fiction. His work has appeared in many literary journals and anthologies, including McSweeney’s, Huizache, Ecotone, Glimmer Train, Shenandoah, NPR’s Selected Shorts, Mississippi Review, NIGHTMARE, and elsewhere. He is the Director of the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program at Northwestern.

Colin Pope is the author of Prayer Book for the New Heretic (NYQ Books, 2023), a finalist for the Louise Bogan Award, and Why I Didn't Go to Your Funeral (Tolsun Books, 2019). His work has appeared in a number of journals, including Slate, The Gettysburg Review, The Kenyon Review, Pleiades, Third Coast, The Los Angeles Review, and Best New Poets, among others. He is the Assistant Director of Creative Writing at Northwestern.

Brian Bouldrey is the author of Good in Bed: A Life in Queer Sex, Politics, and Religion (ReQueered Tales, 2023), as well as Inspired Journeys: Travel Writers in Search of the Muse (University of Wisconsin Press, 2016). He has written three nonfiction books; Honorable Bandit: A Walk Across Corsica (University of Wisconsin Press, September 2007), Monster: Adventures in American Machismo (Council Oak Books), and The Autobiography Box (Chronicle Books); three novels, The Genius of Desire (Ballantine), Love, the Magician (Harrington Park), and The Boom Economy (University of Wisconsin Press), and he is the editor of several anthologies. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Northwestern.

Where: Northwestern University, University Hall, Hagstrum Rm, UH201

1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208