Slocum 214
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Christopher Kennedy is the author of the novel Stealing Marquee Moon (Rose Books), six poetry collections, Clues from the Animal Kingdom (BOA Editions, Ltd.), Ennui Prophet (BOA Editions, Ltd.), Encouragement for a Man Falling to His Death (BOA Editions, Ltd.), which received the Isabella Gardner Poetry Award in 2007, Trouble with the Machine (Low Fidelity Press), and Nietzsche's Horse (Mitki/Mitki Press). He is also one of the translators of Light and Heavy Things: Selected Poems of Zeeshan Sahil (BOA Editions, Ltd.), published in 2013 as part of The Lannan Translation Series. His work has appeared in numerous print and on-line journals and magazines, including Ploughshares, Epoch, The Threepenny Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, Ninth Letter, and New York Tyrant. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and a grant from the Constance Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts. He is a professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Syracuse University.

The reading is preceded by a question-and-answer session that begins at 4:00 pm.

Slocum 214
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. His first full length poetry collection, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, was released in June 2016 from Button Poetry. It was named a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Book Prize, and was nominated for a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award. With Big Lucks, he released a limited edition chapbook, Vintage Sadness, in summer 2017. His first collection of essays, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, was released in winter 2017 by Two Dollar Radio and was named a book of the year by Buzzfeed, Esquire, NPR, Oprah Magazine, Paste, CBC, The Los Angeles Review, Pitchfork, and The Chicago Tribune, among others. He released Go Ahead In The Rain: Notes To A Tribe Called Quest with University of Texas press in February 2019. The book became a New York Times Bestseller, was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. His second collection of poems, A Fortune For Your Disaster, was released in 2019 by Tin House, and won the 2020 Lenore Marshall Prize. In 2021, he released the book A Little Devil In America with Random House, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction and the Gordon Burn Prize. Hanif is the Elise and Leonard Elman Visiting Writer.

The reading is preceded by a question-and-answer session that begins at 4:00 pm.

Slocum 214
Syracuse University campus, Syracuse

Frankie Barnet is the author of Mood Swings, which was shortlisted for the 2024 Grand Prix du livre de Montréal and the 2025 Sunburst Award and longlisted for the 2025 Leacock Medal for Humour; An Indoor Kind of Girl; and Kim: A Novel Idea. She has an MFA from Syracuse University and lives in Montreal.

The reading is preceded by a question-and-answer session that begins at 4:00 pm.