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Program in Creative Writing presents a Reading by Sam Sax and Princeton Creative Writing Seniors on October 22

Program in Creative Writing presents a Reading by Sam Sax and Princeton Creative Writing Seniors on October 22

  • Creative Writing

National Poetry Series-winning poet and novelist opens the 2024-25 C.K. Williams Reading Series

Poet and novelist Sam Sax, author of Madness, bury it, and Yr Dead , will read from their work at 6:00 p.m. on October 22 at Labyrinth Books in Princeton. Annie Cao, Jeanie Chang, Stephenie Chen, Malia Chung, Rosemary Dietz, Rahma Elsheikh, David Odekunle, and Emanuelle Sippy, seniors in Princeton’s Program in Creative Writing , will also read from their recent work. This event kicks off the 2024-2025 C.K. Williams Reading Series, named after the late Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning poet C.K. Williams, who served on Princeton’s faculty for 20 years. The series showcases seniors in the Program in Creative Writing alongside established writers as special guests. Cosponsored by Labyrinth Books, the event is free and open to the public with the authors’ books available to purchase and have signed. The bookstore is an accessible venue. Guests in need of access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at [email protected] at least one week prior to the event date.

Sam looks off to the right, resting their forefinger on their chin while their other fingers grasp a red rose.

Sam Sax. Photo credit: Hollis Rafkin Sax

Sam Sax is a queer, Jewish writer, performer, and educator. Their most recent works are the debut novel Yr Dead (McSweeney’s, 2024) and the poetry collection Pig (Simon & Schuster, 2023), which was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ+ Poetry and named one of the best books of 2023 by New York Magazin e. Sax is also author of Madness , winner of the National Poetry Series, and bury it , winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. Their other poetry collections include A Guide to Undressing Your Monsters, sad boy / detective, All The Rage, and STRAIGHT . A two-time Bay Area Grand Slam Champion, their poems have been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine, Granta , and elsewhere. Sax has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, Stanford University, Yaddo, Lambda Lit, and MacDowell. They are currently serving as an ITALIC Lecturer at Stanford University.

At the event, Sax will read from Yr Dead , which was longlisted for the 2024 National Book Award. Told in lyric fragments that span both lifetimes and geography, Yr Dead is a queer, Jewish, diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present. In a starred review, Kirkus notes that, “Sax has produced a work that is meditative, deeply humane, and profoundly original.”

The eight seniors who will read from their work are among 25 Princeton students pursuing minors in creative writing in addition to their major areas of study. Each is currently working on a novel, a screenplay, translations, or a collection of poems or short stories as part of their creative independent work for the minor. Students in the Program in Creative Writing work closely with a member of the faculty , which includes award-winning writers Michael Dickman, Katie Farris, Aleksandar Hemon, A.M. Homes, Ilya Kaminsky, Yiyun Li, Paul Muldoon, Patricia Smith, and several distinguished lecturers and visiting professors.

Additional readings in the 2024-25 series include novelist Torrey Peters on November 12, novelist Sarah Thankam Mathews on February 11, and fiction writer Sidik Fofana on March 25.

Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the Program in Creative Writing, the Lewis Center for the Arts, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.

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C.K. Williams Reading with Sam Sax

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