February 24, 2022

Raegan Ballard is a senior English major completing her Distinguished English Major research presentation this semester and the 2022 Black History in the Making Award.

February 18, 2022

Nicole Milanovic is a senior English major who was featured for her writing submission.

February 10, 2022

Fabiana is a junior majoring in mass communications and minoring in creative writing. She is one of the Department of English's social media managers!

February 4, 2022

Alicia is a junior English major and Professional Writing and Editing minor. She is a transfer student and loving RVA! She is a manager for the department's social media account and working on the copy-edit team for Blackbird.

January 17, 2022

Recently, VCU News has begun a feature series about Virginia Commonwealth University students, graduates, faculty and staff who have boldly chosen to change something in their lives — whether a new profession, area of study or something else entirely . . .

December 6, 2021

November 10, 2021

Navy veteran and VCU alum Matt Cricchio served in Afghanistan. His debut novel, “Security Day,” will “change how you think about American conflict overseas...

November 5, 2021

Jenna Johnson is an Executive Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux where she worked with author Raven Leilani on her debut novel, Luster. 

August 18, 2021

Please welcome our Fall 2021 incoming MFA class . . .

August 17, 2021

Please welcome our Fall 2021 incoming MA class . . .

August 16, 2021

Please welcome our Fall 2021 incoming MATX/PhD class...

August 10, 2021

Leila Chatti is the winner of the 2021 Levis Reading Prize for her poetry collection Deluge. The prize is awarded annually for the best first or second book of poetry published in the previous calendar year and chosen by the Department of English and its MFA in Creative Writing program at Virginia Commonwealth University . . .

August 5, 2021

Cristina Stanciu, an associate professor of English and current director of the Humanities Research Center will shed light on indigenous boarding schools in her new course, ENGL 358: The Literature of Indigenous Boarding Schools starting this fall. . .

July 6, 2021

Raven Leilani has won the 2021 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, which honors an outstanding debut novel published during the preceding calendar year. Her winning book, Luster, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, tells the story of Edie, a 23-year-old Black woman and aspiring artist, who after losing her job finds herself living with her much older lover, his enigmatic wife and their adopted daughter. . .

May 26, 2021

In a series of videos, the faculty in the Department of English share their thoughts on why studying English is valuable.

May 6, 2021

After thirty-seven years of service, Professor of English David E. Latané will retire from VCU effective September 1. 

May 6, 2021

Richard A. Fine, Professor of English, will retire from VCU on September 1 after 42 years.

May 5, 2021

Six English majors have successfully presented their final Distinguished English Major presentations...

May 5, 2021

After more than thirty years of exemplary service to the Department of English, Margret Schluer, Business and Human Resources Manager, has decided to retire.

April 16, 2021

Dale Smith, the department's coordinator of undergraduate advising, is leaving the department after ten years of service.

April 26, 2021

Ollie Carter will be completing their M.A. in English coursework in the Spring of 2021. They received the Black History in the Making Award for 2021...

April 5, 2021

Congratulations go out to this year’s recipients of Black History in the Making Awards, which features five students from our department . . .

March 29, 2021

Conspiracy theories have always been a part of American discourse . . .

March 17, 2021

M Kamara is a 22-year-old poet-writer-scholar and fourth-year English major, minoring in Creative Writing who will be graduating in December 2021. She is the 2021 Department of English recipient of the Black History in the Making Award...

February 17, 2021

MFA program alum Brian Castleberry is an author and creative writing and literature assistant professor at the College of William & Mary. . .

February 9, 2021

Season 2 of Writing Our Way Out: The Podcast is now available . . .  

February 2, 2021

January 4, 2021

Professor and Oscar Wilde biographer and scholar Nicholas Frankel has edited a new collection of short stories by Wilde . . .

October 14, 2020

Michelle Goshen is the 2020 Cabell First Novelist Fellow and in her third year in the M.F.A. program with a dual-genre concentration in fiction and poetry.

October 7, 2020

Michelle Dotter is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Dzanc Books. Dzanc Books published John Englehardt's novel, Bloomland, which won the 2020 Cabell First Novelist Award.

September 24, 2020

Colin Bailes is the 2020 Levis Reading Prize coordinator and in his third year in the M.F.A. program for poetry.

December 23, 2020

First year MATX PhD, Aurora Higgs, has been working hard both in and outside of the classroom, helping her neighbors during the pandemic . . .

August 26, 2020

MATX doctoral student Robb Crocker will be featured in a special live virtual event...

August 12, 2020

Please welcome our Fall 2020 incoming MATX/PhD class...

August 11, 2020

Please welcome our Fall 2020 incoming MFA class...

August 10, 2020

Please welcome our Fall 2020 incoming MA class...

August 3, 2020

Ilya Kaminsky is the winner of the 2020 Levis Reading Prize for his poetry collection, Deaf Republic...

July 31, 2020

When Michele Poulos and Professor Gregory Donovan teamed up to film the documentary, A Late Style of Fire: Larry Levis, American Poet, they shot hours of interviews with some of the most influential, revered poets in the United States...

July 13, 2020

MFA grad, Rachel Beanland, finds it surreal that the book she began working on in a novel writing workshop at Virginia Commonwealth University is now in publication...

June 29, 2020

John Englehardt has won the 2020 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, which honors an outstanding debut novel published during the preceding calendar year. His winning book, Bloomland, published by Dzanc Books, deftly tells the aftermath story of a shooting at a fictional southern university, following three characters and the larger community over two decades, and is told in a provocative, implicating second-person style point of view...

June 15, 2020

Current MATX PhD student, Robb Crocker, a former journalist who earned two journalism degrees from VCU is helping produce a podcast inspired by Professor David Coogan’s book, Writing Our Way Out: Memoirs from Jail...

June 8, 2020

When it came time to choosing a final research project for her master’s degree in English, Sara MacRae found inspiration in her job as a teacher at John Marshall High School...

April 24, 2020

Crystal Giannini received her B.A. in English in May of 2017. Crystal is currently teaching English 9, 10, and 11 at Dinwiddie High School where she loves being able to introduce texts to students in fun and engaging ways!

April 17, 2020

Gretchen Gales graduated with a B.A. in English and a minor in Creative Writing from VCU in December 2016. Gretchen is currently the executive editor of Quail Bell Magazine and a high school English teacher.

April 16, 2020

Mimi Winick, Ph.D., who was recently named a research associate for Harvard's Women's Studies in Religion Program for the 2020-21 academic year.

April 2, 2020

Like many of our colleagues, VCU English Professor Nicholas Frankel had limited experience with online learning prior to the COVID-19 crisis...

March 23, 2020

Jessica Sims is a senior English major and the recipient of the Black History in the Making Award for 2020. She’s a non-traditional student who loves reading, writing poetry and other forms of creative writing, loves music, enjoys trying her hand at photography, and loves “being the best single mom to a vivacious 9-year old that I can be.” She’s considering getting her masters so that she can be a teacher at the secondary level, but says “I will have to see what the future holds for me!”

March 5, 2020

Congratulations go out to Adin Lears, Ph.D., an assistant professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University, who has been named a fellow at the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University for the 2020-21 academic year...

March 2, 2020

The Richmond and Qatar-based independent press Diode Editions is proud to announce the publication of Prismatics: Larry Levis & Contemporary American Poetry...

February 21, 2020

Chloe is a junior English major, creative writing minor at VCU. She currently works in the nonprofit world, advocating for childhood literacy and foster care/adoption. She plans to be a high school English teacher upon graduating.

February 17, 2020

Kathleen Graber's The River Twice (Princeton University Press) has won the 2020 UNT Rilke Prize...

February 7, 2020

Caitlin Wilson is the 2019-2020 lead associate editor of Blackbird: an online journal for literature and the arts and in her second year of the M.F.A. program for poetry.

February 5, 2020

“My literature classes prepared me for the business world more than anything. I draw from my English degree all the time. I’m absolutely convinced my liberal arts background has been a great point of leverage for me...”

January 31, 2020

Rachel graduated from VCU in December 2017 with her B.A. in English and double minors in business and nonprofit management.

November 6, 2019

Jenna Johnson is an Executive Editor at Farrar, Straus and Giroux. While attending the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award event, she will participate on a panel about the process of publishing a debut novel, alongside her client Ling Ma, whose novel Severance won this year’s award.

December 11, 2019

Three undergraduate students presented the culmination of their two-semester creative and scholarly research projects...

November 22, 2019

Adin Lears is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and started at VCU in the fall of 2018. She teaches classes on medieval literature, Chaucer, and much more.

November 15, 2019

Matteo Pangallo is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English and started at VCU in the fall of 2017. He teaches classes on Shakespeare, early modern drama, book history, and theater history.

November 12, 2019

Patricia (Patty) Smith is the author of The Year of Needy Girls (Kaylie Jones Books, 2017). She received her M.F.A. at VCU in 2001 and teaches American literature and creative writing at the Appomattox Regional Governor’s School in Petersburg, VA.

November 6, 2019

Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Ph.D., will give a special guest lecture.

November 1, 2019

Natalie Marie Salsbury graduated with a B.A. in English and a minor in Creative Writing from VCU in December 2018. She is the Administrative Specialist in the Dean's Office of College of Humanities and Sciences.

October 30, 2019

Jin Auh is a literary agent at The Wylie Agency. While attending the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award event, she will participate on a panel about the process of publishing a debut novel, alongside her client Ling Ma, whose novel Severance (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) won this year’s award.

October 18, 2019

Dale Brumfield graduated from VCU with a B.F.A. in painting and printmaking in 1981 and graduated from the VCU M.F.A. program in Creative Writing in 2015. His tenth book has just been released.

September 30, 2019

September 20, 2019

April Sopkin is the 2019 Cabell First Novelist Award Fellow and in her third year of the M.F.A. program for fiction.

September 19, 2019

Joshua Eckhardt has authored a new book that examines the religious texts and books that surrounded the poems, sermons, and inscriptions of poet and preacher John Donne...

September 18, 2019

September 18, 2019

AJ White is the 2019 Levis Reading Prize coordinator and in his third year in the M.F.A. program for poetry.

September 16, 2019

Kathleen Graber, associate professor in the Department of English, has published a new collection of poems, The River Twice, (Princeton University Press, 2019)...

September 5, 2019

All VCU students, undergraduate and graduate, are invited to submit to the VCU Student Book-Collecting Contest...

September 5, 2019

Sonja Livingston has authored a new collection of essays, The Virgin of Prince Street: Expeditions into Devotion (University of Nebraska Press)...

August 16, 2019

August 14, 2019

August 13, 2019

August 12, 2019

July 30, 2019

July 9, 2019

Jenny Xie is the winner of the 2019 Levis Reading Prize...

July 2, 2019

Ling Ma has won the 2019 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award...

May 23, 2019

April 15, 2019

April 12, 2019

March 26, 2019

March 20, 2019

March 7, 2019

January 31, 2019

Acclaimed author, Yiyun Li, who teaches creative writing at Princeton University, is VCU’s 2019 Distinguished Visiting Writer...

February 25, 2019

February 21, 2019

January 7, 2019

VCU News' latest student spotlight feature focuses on VCU English major, Glynis Boyd Hughes . . .

October 22, 2018

The Library of Virginia on Saturday announced the winners of the 21st annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards...

October 8, 2018

VCU English alum, X.C. Atkins, has just published his debut collection of short stories. Grace Street Alley and Other Stories ...

August 19, 2018

Please welcome our Fall 2018 incoming MA in English class...

August 19, 2018

Please welcome our Fall 2018 incoming MFA in Creative Writing class...

August 19, 2018

Please welcome our Fall 2018 incoming PhD in Media, Art and Text class...

July 13, 2018

Kaveh Akbar is the winner of the 2018 Levis Reading Prize for his poetry collection Calling a Wolf a Wolf...

July 13, 2018

Selected news from our MA in English program alumni...

July 6, 2018

Recent news from our MFA alumni...

May 28, 2018

PBS News Hour recently featured VCU English alum and prize-winning author Kevin Powers as a part of its Memorial Day coverage...

May 25, 2018

VCU MFA graduate Michele Young-Stone's latest novel, Lost in the Beehive follows a young woman growing up in the 1960s...