Holy Cross Creative Writing Professors Launch Annual Working Writers Series

Books published by members of the History Department. Photo by Tom Rettig

On Thursday, September 12, the Working Writers Series will be showcasing the work of the College of the Holy Cross’s W. H. Jenks Chair in Contemporary American Letters, Leah Hager Cohen, and Susan Elizabeth Sweeney, associate professor of English in the Rehm Library at 7:30 p.m. The English department’s Creative Writing Program sponsors the series. The event is free and open to the public.

Leah Hager Cohen is the author of five novels, including the forthcoming “No Book but the World,” (Penguin Group) and five nonfiction titles, including “I Don't Know: In Praise of Admitting Ignorance (Except When You Shouldn't)” (Penguin Group, 2013). Her work has been long-listed for the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, selected by Oprah, and appeared on many best and notable lists, including that of the New York Times, the American Library Association, Kirkus Reviews, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the Toronto Globe and Mail. She is a frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review.

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney’s poetry has appeared in The Worcester Review, the Journal of Irish Literature, and elsewhere, and earned the Frank O’Hara Prize, among other awards.   Her collection of poems, “Hand Me Down”—a semifinalist in the 2012 New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition—just came out from Finishing Line Press.  Other publications include essays and edited books on detective stories and postmodernist novels.  She teaches American literature at the College of the Holy Cross.

The 2013-14 Working Writers Series will continue through the fall semester with the following panels:

  • Thursday, September 26 – David Ferry, reading
  • Thursday, October 24 – Lee Martin, discussion of the writer’s craft and reading
  • Thursday, November 14 – Dror Burstein, reading sponsored with the McFarland Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture
  • Thursday, November 21 – Junot Diaz, reading sponsored with the Jenks Chair of Contemporary American Letters