Events

September 17, 2025, 7 p.m.

ire’ne lara silva, 2023 Texas State Poet Laureate, is the author of five poetry collections, furia, Blood Sugar Canto, CUICACALLI/House of Song, FirstPoems, and the eaters of flowers, two chapbooks, Enduring Azucares and Hibiscus Tacos, a comic book, VENDAVAL, and a short story collection, flesh to bone, which won the Premio Aztlán. ire’ne is the recipient of a 2025 Storyknife Writers Residency, the 2021 Texas Institute of Letters Shrake Award for Best Short Nonfiction, a 2021 Tasajillo Writers Grant, a 2017 NALAC Fund for the Arts Grant, the final Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, and was the Fiction Finalist for AROHO’s 2013 Gift of Freedom Award. Her second short story collection, the light of your body, will be published by Arte Publico Press in Spring 2026.

(photo credit: Angelina Daves)

November 19, 2025, 7 p.m.

Ben Lerner is the author of several books of poetry, most recently The Lights. He is also the author of the novels Leaving Atocha Station, 10:04, and The Topeka School, as well as a book-length essay, The Hatred of Poetry. He has been a finalist for the National Book Award and received fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, among other honors. He is a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College.

February 11, 2026, 7 p.m.

Nnedi Okorafor is an international award-winning New York Times Bestselling novelist of science fiction and fantasy for children, young adults and adults. Born in the United States to Nigerian immigrant parents, Nnedi is known for drawing from African cultures to create captivating stories with unforgettable characters and evocative settings. Nnedi has received the World Fantasy, Nebula, Eisner and Lodestar Awards and multiple Hugo Awards, amongst others, for her books. Champions of her work include Neil Gaiman, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, George RR Martin, and Rick Riordan. Literary ancestors Diana Wynne Jones, Ursula K. Le Guin and Nawal El Saadawi also loved her work. Nnedi holds a PhD in Literature, two Master’s Degrees (Journalism and Literature) and lives in Phoenix, Arizona with her daughter Anyaugo. Learn more at nnedi.com. You can also follow her on Twitter (@nnedi) and Instagram (@nnediokorafor).

March 4, 2026, 7 p.m.

Naomi Shihab Nye is the author and/or editor of more than 30 volumes. Her books of poetry include 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, A Maze Me: Poems for Girls, Red Suitcase, Words Under the Words, Fuel, and You & Yours (a best-selling poetry book of 2006). She is also the author of Mint Snowball, Never in a Hurry, I’ll Ask You Three Times, Are you Okay? Tales of Driving and Being Driven (essays); Habibi and Going Going (novels for young readers); Baby Radar, Sitti's Secrets, and Famous (picture books) and There Is No Long Distance Now (a collection of very short stories).

Other works include several prize-winning poetry anthologies for young readers, including Time You Let Me In, This Same Sky, The Space Between Our Footsteps: Poems & Paintings from the Middle East, What Have You Lost?, and Transfer. Her collection of poems for young adults entitled Honeybee won the 2008 Arab American Book Award in the Children’s/Young Adult category. Her novel for children, The Turtle of Oman, was chosen both a Best Book of 2014 by The Horn Book and a 2015 Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association. The Turtle of Oman was also awarded the 2015 Middle East Book Award for Youth Literature. She was named Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation in 2019, awarded the 2019 Lon Tinkle Award by the Texas Institute of Letters, and elected into The American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2021. Her most recent books are Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners (2018; Greenwillow Books, HarperCollins) and The Tiny Journalist (2019; BOA Editions).