For 30 years, the Contemporary Writers Series at Aquinas has brought acclaimed voices to campus, providing valuable opportunities for students, staff, faculty, and members of the broader Grand Rapids community to benefit from their wisdom. This year, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the series, three widely beloved writers are returning: poet and performer Sarah Kay, former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, and bestselling author Luis Alberto Urrea.
In addition to these writers, this year’s series will also feature the work of student poets from Calvin University, Grand Valley State University, Grand Rapids Community College, and Aquinas College in the Celebration of Student Poetry.
All presentations are free and open to the public.
Those who want regular reminders for each event can also join the new CWS Email List.
Sarah Kay
September 17, 2026 | 6 p.m.
Wege Ballroom, Wege Student Center
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 master's 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.
This event is co-sponsored by the Jane Hibbard Idema Women’s and Gender Studies Center.
Joy Harjo
November 12, 2026 | 6 p.m.
Wege Ballroom, Wege Student Center
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 | 6-7 p.m.
Kretschmer Recital Hall, Art & Music Center
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
March 18, 2027 | 6 p.m.
Wege Ballroom, Wege Student Center
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.