The English Department annually sponsors and co-sponsors significant contemporary writers and scholars, often winners of Pulitzer Prizes, MacArthur "genius grants," National Book Awards and various other honors.

All writers brought to campus work with students personally; all public presentations are free. For more information, please email Kathy Barton at kabarton@davidson.edu or call 704-894-2254.

All events are free and open to the public. Attendees must comply with college COVID policies. 

Spring 2024 Literary Events Calendar

Sponsors of these events include: The Batten Professorship, DACE, McGee Professorship, the BACCA Foundation Visiting Scholar and Artist Program and the academic departments of Africana Studies, Art, English, Digital Studies, Gender Studies and Humanities.

Fiction Writer Karen Russell Connaroe Lecture February 26

Location: Tyler Tallman Auditorium, Sloan Music Building

Time: 7:30 p.m.

MacArthur Fellow Karen Russel's Swamplandia! (2011) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and one of The New York Times' Ten Best Books of 2011. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, and a former fellow of the American Academy in Berlin.

Rone Shavers McGee Professor Rone Shavers February 29

Location: Katherine and Tom Belk Visual Arts Center

Time: 7 p.m.

McGee Professor Rone Shavers's works include the Afrofuturist novel Silverfish, which was named one of the Best Fiction Books of 2020 by The Brooklyn Rail. He teaches in the University of Utah's Ph.D. program in creative writing. 

Gabrielle Bell A Staged Reading of Her Cartoons March 18

Location: Hance Auditorium, Chambers Building

Time: 7 p.m.

With the cartoonist directing, student performers will voice cartoons of Gabrielle Bell, from her collection, Voyeurism. This will be the opening night of Bell’s one-week residency, sponsored by the Bacca Foundation Visiting Artist/Scholar Program, and cosponsored by the departments of Art, Digital Studies, English, GSS, and Humanities.

Gabrielle Bell Cartoonist Gabrielle Bell March 21

Location: Lilly Family Gallery, Chambers Building

Time: 7 p.m.

Cartoonist Gabrielle Bell's first full-length graphic memoir, Everything is Flammable, was named one of the best graphic novels of 2017 by Entertainment Weekly, Paste Magazine, and Publisher's Weekly. She has been honored with eight selections in Best American Comics

Writer and Artist John Keene Literary Gala & Awards April 3

Location: 900 Room, Knobloch Campus Center

Time: 7:30 p.m.

2018 MacArthur Fellow John Keene is a writer, translator, professor, and artist. He is the author or co-author of half a dozen books, including Annotations and Counternarratives. His collection Punks won the 2022 National Book Award in Poetry. Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University-Newark, he chairs the Africana Studies Department and also teaches in the English Department and MFA Program in Creative Writing.


Past Presenters

NC Poet Laureate, Jaki Shelton Green stands at podium holding her book, and reading poems into the microphone

Jackie Shelton Green

Clint Smith

Clint Smith

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood

Don Delillo

Don Delillo

Claudia Rankine

Claudia Rankine

Salman Rushdie

Salman Rushdie