Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas College
Discover the Contemporary Writers Series
Season 30 of the Contemporary Writers Series will focus on the 30th Anniversary Celebration
Always engaging, inspiring, and thought-provoking, the Contemporary Writers Series is a curated look at the literature in our lives. Join us for this fresh series of author talks on the Aquinas College campus.
All presentations are free and open to the public. They take place in the Kretschmer Recital Hall in the Art & Music Center from 6-7 p.m. Free parking is available in the large parking lot next to Sturrus Sports & Fitness Center off of Fulton Street.
Sara Kay
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Sarah Kay is a celebrated writer, performer, educator, and TED speaker, inspiring audiences
worldwide with the transformative power of spoken word poetry. As the founder of Project
VOICE, she has brought poetry into hundreds of classrooms and communities, empowering
voices of all ages. Kay is the author of five poetry collections, including her newest,
A Little Daylight Left, sharing poems that celebrate wonder and resilience.
Her performances inspire and remind audiences of poetry’s power to connect and heal. Through her work with Project VOICE, Kay has personally shared and taught poetry in over thirty countries, collaborating with educators at schools and universities worldwide.
Kay has a masters degree in the Art of Teaching from Brown University, and has been a Hedgebrook Artist in Residence, a Serenbe Artist in Residence, a Kundiman Fellow, and a New Arizona Fellow at New America, as well as an upcoming Hawthornden Foundation Artist in Residence.
Co-sponsored by the Jane Hibbard Idema Women’s and Gender Studies Center
Joy Harjo
November 11- 12, 2026
Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate and member of the Muscogee Nation, is the author of numerous books of poetry, several plays, children’s books, two memoirs, and seven music albums. Her honors include Yale’s 2023 Bollingen Prize for American Poetry, National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the Ruth Lily Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Tulsa Artist Fellowship.
She is a former chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is currently the inaugural Artist-in-Residence for the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she lives.
CWS Presents a Celebration of Student Poetry
February 18, 2027
Join the Contemporary Writers Series in celebrating the work of student poets from Calvin University, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Community College, and Aquinas College as they read their poems.
Luis Alberto Urrea
Thursday, March 18, 2027
A 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and a Guggenheim fellow, Luis Alberto Urrea is the critically acclaimed and best-selling author of 19 books, winning numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. His book The House of Broken Angels was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction.
In 2017, Urrea won an American Academy of Arts and Letters Fiction award, and his collection of short stories, The Water Museum, was a finalist for the
2016 PEN-Faulkner Award. The Devil’s Highway won the Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Urrea also won a 1999 American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody’s Son: Notes from an American Life and in 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame.
Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder. He lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
CONTACT INFO
Contemporary Writers Series
cws@aquinas.edu