CUNY Academic Commons

Rajiv Mohabir – Sixth Finch MFA alum Rajiv Mohabir has three poems in this Spring 2024 issue of Sixth Finch, out just today! Sixth Finch, is a quarterly journal of poetry and art, operating continuously since 2008. You should read Rajiv’s poems right now, then think about submitting your poems for the next […] “Rajiv Mohabir – Sixth Finch”

Alaya Dawn Johnson Wins Best Fiction Award for Younger Readers Next year’s Visiting Professor Alaya Dawn Johnson has just been awarded the Best Fiction for Younger Readers Award by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) for her YA novel The Library of Broken Worlds (HarperCollins). The BSFA has a rich tradition of recognizing groundbreaking figures in the field of science fiction, so it is an honor for Johnson to be recognized. And it is just this level of skill and expertise that Johnson will bring to […] “Alaya Dawn Johnson Wins Best Fiction Award for Younger Readers”

Jonathan Kravetz – Kirkus Reviews MFA alum Jonathan Kravetz’s upcoming novel, How We Were Before, has its first book review up on Kirkus Reviews. Go check out this praise-filled review and get excited for Jonathan’s book before it becomes available for purchase […] “Jonathan Kravetz – Kirkus Reviews”

4/30 – Brainstorm: Sedarat & Coloff Tuesday, April 30 at 7PMPete’s Candy Store709 Lorimer St.Brooklyn, NY Grab your thinking caps because the next Brainstorm is coming your way, featuring poet Roger Sedarat (Haji As Puppet: An Orientalist Burlesque) and musician Leah Coloff (The Secret City). Brainstorm is a reading series organized by grad students from theQueens College MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation.Come hear writers you know, meet writers you might like to know, andperhaps be introduced to your fu […] “4/30 – Brainstorm: Sedarat & Coloff”

A Reading by Birdhouse Prize Winner Hannah Lee Tuesday, April 16, 7PM(Reception at 6:30PM)QC Art Center, Rosenthal Library 612Moderated by Peter VanderbergIn-person, or via Zoom: http://tinyurl.com/2efezp7x Join us as we celebrate the latest winner of the Birdhouse Prize from Ghostbird Press, Hannah Lee! She’ll be reading from her award-winning chapbook, On the Other Side of the Magpie, along with past winners Joe Gross and Francesca Hyatt. Ghostbird Press is a small, independent chapbook press that publishes collaborations of writing and visual art. Peter Vanderberg, a fellow QC MFA alum, offers the annual Birdhouse Prize to graduating QC MFA students, resulting in a gorgeous full-color chapbook for the winner. If you can’t make it to campus for this wonderful event for the QC community, we hope you can join us over Zoom via the link below.Join via Zoom: BIOS: Hannah Lee is a NYC-based Korean-American poet who processes her world through poetry. She is a graduate of the Queens College MFA program, and was an editor at Armstrong Literary. Her work has been featured in Encounters Magazine. Francesca Hyatt is a writer, translator, and lecturer of English at CUNY-Queens College. She has MFA in Creative Nonfiction and her chapbook Forestwish won the Birdhouse Prize in 2022 (Ghostbird Press). She is the editor at KtB Magazine, a founding co-editor at the new literary journal Clotheslines, and the co-editor of the forthcoming anthology Eating Alone. www.francescahyatt.com. Joe Gross is a Flushing-based bookseller, poet, translator, and author the prize-winning chapbook Lest We All Get Clipped (Ghostbird Press, His work has been anthologized in Eating Alone: Essays & Reflections (Clotheslines Press). His work has been anthologized in Eating Alone: Essays & Reflections (Clotheslines Press 2023) and The Pearl (Wyeth Renwick 2023). He holds an MFA from Queens College, where he was co-editor of Armstrong Literary. Twitter: @komradekapybara Instagram: @joegrosspoet Peter Vanderberg is the editor of Ghostbird Press and a PhD student at St. John’s University. He is the author of several chapbooks including war/torn, recently released from Finishing Line Press. He lives and […] “A Reading by Birdhouse Prize Winner Hannah Lee”

Literature Grant 2024 Winter Grantee zakia henderson-brown The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2024 Winter Literature Grant to Queens College MFA alum zakia henderson-brown for her upcoming collection of poems “Power Theory”. Since 2007 the foundation has supported and fostered talented artists of all kinds, enabling them to enhance their craft and realize their artistic vision. The awards are established to support and encourage artists residing in New York City who are currently working in music, visual arts, performance and literature. zakia henderson-brown is a 2023 NYFA/NYSCA Poetry Fellow and the author of What Kind of Omen Am I, winner of Poetry Society of America’s Chapbook Fellowship, selected by Cate Marvin. She was a Poets House Emerging Poets fellow, and has received additional fellowships and support from the Fine Arts Work Center, Callaloo Journal, Squaw Valley Community of Writers, and Cave Canem. Her poems have appeared in Adroit, African American Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, the Brooklyn Review, Burner Magazine, Epiphany, Little Patuxent Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Reverie, No, Dear, North American Review, Obsidian, the Offing, Thethepoetry.com, Torch, Under a Warm Green Linden, Vinyl, Washington Square Review, and the anthologies New Daughters of Africa (Amistad: 2019) and Why I Am Not a Painter (Argos: 2011). She has worked as a community organizer at Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE) and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; as a researcher at UNITE HERE!, a resource coordinator at Break the Chains: Communities of Color and the War on Drugs; and as a research associate at the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College. She completed the 2010 Activate! organizing fellowship at Social Justice Leadership and is an emerita board member of the Brooklyn Movement Center, where she co-founded the anti-gendered and sexualized street harassment collective, No Disrespect. zakia was selected as a finalist for the 2021 Publishers Weekly Star to Watch program, selected as a finalist for the 2019 Furious Flower Poetry Prize by A. Van Jordan, nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2023 by Under a Warm Green Linden and in 2013 by Beloit Poetry Journal, and has been in residence at the T.S. Eliot House, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Louis Armstrong House Museum. She currently serves as a senior editor at nonprofit publisher The New Press. She is a Brooklyn native and loyalist. Power Theory focuses on how different actors navigate, exercise, and grapple with power across different contexts. Overall, the project focuses on the mundane, fraught, and necessary ways we connect with one another in the natural and socially constructed worlds, across both time and circumstance. But these poems also explore the ways we alternately wield and relinquish power *in order to* connect, especially in times of great conflict. Some of these poems explore family loss, and the ensuing grief that comes along with it; the sometimes transcendent experience of mourning, and how we must relinquish power to truly heal. Some of the poems in the manuscript explore how women exercise and navigate power in the face of daunting, entrenched patriarchal obstacles. Still others of these poems explore how to grapple with power in a racialized and social justice context, the seemingly never-ending push and pull that we all must engage. The poems explore all of these while remaining at turns tonally playful and somber, and experimenting with conventions of the line and sonnets. Please visit zakia’s website o […] “Literature Grant 2024 Winter Grantee zakia henderson-brown”

Jonathan Alexandratos – Beyond the Binary MFA alum Jonathan Alexandratos isn’t just in this collection of plays by eight non-binary playwrights, called Beyond the Binary. They created the book, pitched it to Next Stage Press, edited it, contributed a play, its introduction, and wrote its preface. This is one of the great things about the MFA Program at Queens College: it teaches you to be a self-starter. No one waits to be handed a stipend or have doors opened for them here. Jonathan saw the need for this collection to exist and created this love letter to nonbinary joy! You should preorder your copy now! Gender non-binary theatre has a long and diverse history, yet modern stages scarcely spotlight its stories. Beyond the Binary: Eight Non-Binary Plays changes this by presenting short plays from non-binary playwrights that intersect with race, class, religion, politics, and pop culture. Audiences can meet Joan of Arc, hear toys talk, visit New York City, feel the heartbeat of a family, and more – all through the lens of non-binary playwrights. These pieces can be assembled into an evening of theatre that centers non-binary experiences, or they can be broken up and integrated into larger events. They are also ideal for classroom use and individual inspiration. The plays contained here are a love letter to non-binary joy, and they can’t wait […] “Jonathan Alexandratos – Beyond the Binary”

Q&A with After Dinner Conversation author, Todd Sullivan MFA alum Todd Sullivan is going to be doing an interview for the journal After Dinner Conversation, which publishes on April 28th! After Dinner Conversation, as you may remember, was the journal that nominated Todd for a Pushcart Short Story Award, for his story “One Hour,” late last year. We’re so excited for you, Todd! Click the link to […] “Q&A with After Dinner Conversation author, Todd Sullivan”

Rebecca Suzuki – SPD Best Seller List MFA alum Rebecca Suzuki’s award-winning chapbook, When My Mother Is Most Beautiful, is listed as number four on Small Press Distribution’s Poetry Bestsellers! When My Mother Is Most Beautiful is the most recent winner of the Loose Translations Award from Hanging Loose Press, which publishes a work of translation from a Queens College MFA student each year. Partnering on this award with this respected independent press celebrates what our program is all about: Language. Culture. Community. We have built not just our translation track, but our entire program on these pillars. When My Mother Is Most Beautiful is at once a powerful love letter to a mother and to language itself, delving into complex questions of family, communication, culture, and connection. These poems chronicle the difficult art of navigating multiple cultural identities, examining how languages twist and morph across cultures through the imperfect act of translation, how they bind people together and keep them apart, and even how they could be reimagined to make a better world. Pick up your copy today directly […] “Rebecca Suzuki – SPD Best Seller List”

Jason Tougaw: Dory Previn's Voices Professor Jason Tougaw has a new piece on Psychology Today, on Dory Previn, hearing voices, and the new documentary about her–Dory Previn: On My Way to Where. Go check it out!

Apr 17: A Reading by Poets Cynthia Manick and Malvika Jolly The Queens College English Department is proud to partner with the Belladonna* Collaborative to bring you a reading by Cynthia Manick and […]

Two Translations: Ammiel Alcalay There are two stunning […] “”

“Acoustic Fulcrums" – Rajiv Mohabir The Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Ragini Festival posted a clip of MFA Rajiv Mohabir talking about his memoir, Antiman, as a reminder that he’ll be taking the stage at Joe’s Pub tonight! (3/21/24) Rajiv will be reading poems and singing ancestral songs as part of “Acoustic Fulcrums,” a diasporic night representative of Caribbean memory, language, and iconic sound cultur […] ““Acoustic Fulcrums” – Rajiv Mohabir”

Eleanor Whitney: Finding My Femme-inismMFA alum Eleanor Whitney has a new essay up on The Coil/Medium called “Finding My Femme-inism: Riot Grrrl’s Influence on Identity” about how music helped Eleanor discover more about herself. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Eleanor W (@killerfemme) […] “Eleanor Whitney: Finding My Femme-inism”

Joyce Carol Oates & Ali Sethi DATE: SAT, MAY 11, 2024, 7 PMVENUE: LeFrak Concert HallTICKETS: $10/FREE with Online RSVP for QC Students, Faculty & Staff w/ ID  Join us for an exclusive live episode of the SongWriter podcast where stories turn into songs! We welcome two iconic artists to the stage: the legendary author Joyce Carol Oates and the innovative musician and novelist Ali Sethi, recognized in TIME’s 100 Next list. Hosted by the podcast’s creator and producer, Ben Arthur, this live event promises captivating stories, mesmerizing music, and thought-provoking conversations. There is no more versatile and accomplished American writer than Joyce Carol Oates. The author of many books, Oates has penned bestselling novels, critically acclaimed collections of short fiction, as well as essays, plays, poetry, a memoir, A Widow’s Story, and an unlikely bestseller, On Boxing. Her remarkable literary industry – which includes work as an editor and anthologist – spans forms, themes, topics and genres. Joyce Carol Oates is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University, and since 1978, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Ali Sethi, a New York-based writer, composer, and performer, gained global fame with his hit single “Pasoori,” topping Spotify’s Global Viral chart in 2022 and becoming Google’s most hummed-to-search song. Blending traditional South Asian melodies with global beats and drawing on “folk” and “woke” iconographies to tell powerful tales of identity, Sethi’s work has been described as “stealthily subversive” by The New Yorker. His innovative approach has earned him a spot on TIME’s 100 Next list.” Ben Arthur, an Emmy-nominated songwriter, hosts and produces SongWriter, a podcast transforming stories into songs. His upcoming album, “Remission,” completes a musical trilogy alongside “Collision” and “Transmission,” with many tracks inspired by episodes of SongWriter. Notable guests this season include Neil Gaiman, Kat Edmonson, and George Saunders. Past guests have included Questlove, Joyce Carol Oates, and David Gilmour. SongWriter episodes are previewed by Paste Magazine and featured on Acoustic Cafe for 1.5M listeners. “Remission” showcases performances from Byron Isaacs and Tony Trischka. Ben has released eleven albums, authored two novels, and shared the stage with artists like Dave Matthews and Tori Amos. He’s also licensed songs to major networks and co-produced the Emmy-nominated series SongCraft Presents since 2011. This event is presented by the Queens College School of Arts, the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Literary Translation, and Kupferberg Center […] “Joyce Carol Oates & Ali Sethi”

9th Annual Queens College English Graduate Conference Wednesday, March 27, 202410:30 AM to 6:00 PMPresidental Conference Room 2 (5th Fl.)Rosenthal Library, Queens College LINK/INFO The Queens College Graduate Conference in English Literature Studies is happening on March 27th, and our MFA students are showcasing the unique knowledge they’ve developed through their practice of creative writing & literary translation with scholarship. Current MFA students Julie Goodale and Richard Prins will be taking place in this year’s conference as well! Julie will be making a presentation on docupoetics and performance called “Taking Up Space: Extending the Document into Multiple Dimensions,” and Richard will be talking about his translations of several speculative Swahili novels, and offering some thoughts on the particular appeal of utopia to Swahili literature in a talk called “Kusadikika and Walenisi: The Purpose of Utopia in the Swahili Novel.” This is just some of the amazing work you can expect from an MFA Program as unique as Queens College! We engage multiple cultures and perspectives reflective of being located in the most culturally diverse place on the planet, and in doing so we prepare students not just to generate their own creative work but also academically to pursue further graduate studies (such as PhDs) or work in other fields. To see exactly when these presentations are happening, check o […] “9th Annual Queens College English Graduate Conference”

Rajiv Mohabir – Acoustic Fulcrums Mar 21,7:00 PM|Joe’s Pub|$30Tickets/Info Brooklyn Raga Massive’s Ragini Festival 2024 presents “Acoustic Fulcrums” – a diasporic night representative of Caribbean memory, language and iconic sound culture. Centered around the work of poet, memoirist and translator, Rajiv Mohabir and the arrangements of steel pan artist and bandleader, Josanne Francis, this curated night explores the axis of acoustic memory and palpable story telling, capturing the many rifts, continents and currents expressive of the Caribbean postcolonial experience.  Rajiv Mohabir’s work traverses and emanates out of a long dialogue with collective memory around the migrant experience, around fractured yet continuously sung oral history and the poetics, sonic transference and healing that writing can offer.  Josanne Francis is a maestra of the steelpan instrument, an innovation born out of colonial resistance, repurposing petroleum industry metal containers within the urban tenements of Trinidad’s capital area. Now steelpan has become a large orchestral, ensemble and improvisatory instrument, blooming with the sounds of African-des […] “Rajiv Mohabir – Acoustic Fulcrums”

N.K. Jemisin: Reading and in Conversation We are so excited about our visit from N.K. Jemisin coming up on March 27. It’s not too often you have a three-time winner of the Hugo Award right in front of you, and even more impressive is that she’s the first author to win the award three consecutive years in a row (for her Broken Earth trilogy). And the good news is you have two ways to attend, by RSVP for in-person, and over Zoom, so you don’t have to miss out on this fantastic reading! RSVP: https://forms.gle/yEuoMxGxWoixUXgY6Link to join: […] “N.K. Jemisin: Reading and in Conversation”

A Reading by Vivian Gornick Thursday, March 7, Reception: 6:15 PMEvent: 7–8:30 PMQ-Side Lounge, Dining Hall Room 122RSVP (FREE): https://bit.ly/viviangornickJoin via Zoom: http://tinyurl.com/3hbvbvzs Please join us for a reading by the legendary Vivian Gornick. Memoirist, critic, and CUNY graduate, Gornick is a pioneer of creative nonfiction, writing with unwavering willingness to share from her experiences to explore larger social issues. Gornick will read from her extensive body of work, then join in a question and answer session moderated by MFA alum Catherine LaSota. This is surely an event not to be missed, so if you can’t make it to our beautiful Queens College campus, be sure to login over Zoom so you don’t miss a thing! RSVP to come jn person (FREE): https://bit.ly/viviangornickJoin via Zoom: http://tinyurl.com/3hbvbvzs BIOS: For Vivian Gornick, self-narrative is a form of cultural criticism: The personal is decidedly political. Born in the Bronx, she grew up in a family of working-class immigrants with parents who were committed Communists. Since the 1960s, she has been a writer of journalism, essays, and memoirs. Much of her writing explores the actual and metaphoric significance of being an outsider—perpetually “half in, half out.” Despite her claim that feminism ended her attachment to Judaism, the experience of being “twice an outsider” (Jewish and female) serves for her as a powerful lesson in marginality. In works on feminist radicals Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Emma Goldman, she has expanded the autobiographical form to include the biographical, offering an ideological and genealogical starting point for Gornick’s own involvement in second wave feminism. She is currently at work on a book about CUNY’s City College of New York. Catherine LaSota (MFA in Creative Nonfiction ‘24, Queens College) is the Associate Director of Social Practice CUNY. She is the founder of the Resort writing community and host of the Cabana Chats podcast on writing and community. From 2015–2020, Catherine hosted the acclaimed LIC Reading Series, and she is the former executive director of the Center for the Study of Social Difference at Columbia University. Her writing appears in Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Vice, The Brooklyn Rail, Catapult, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and two young children in Q […] “A Reading by Vivian Gornick”

Application Deadline Extended! We didn’t want you to miss out on your chance to develop your voice and vision in one of the most diverse places on the planet, so we’ve extended our admissions deadline! The new priority deadline for scholarships is March 15, and the final deadline is April 15. To find out just what you need to do to join us in Queens, visit our website for more info (link […] “Application Deadline Extended!”