The Creative Writing Program is proud to celebrate the many successes of students past and present.
See below for our current news, and these pages for news from prior years: 2023–2024 news, 2022-2023 news, 2021-2022 news; 2020 & earlier. Please also visit our UWM creative writing program bookshelf.
Poetry faculty emerita and alumna Brenda Cárdenas was named Wisconsin Poet Laureate in December, 2024. Her two-year term starts January 15, 2025.
Kyle Battle (’19, BA Economics and English) is the writer of “The Dead Memoirs,” a musical hip-hopera based on the novel The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas by Machado de Assis. On Nov. 11, the show debuted at the sold-out Dormouse Theatre in Kalamazoo, Michigan to an enthusiastic audience. More details here.
Brookes Moody (PhD, 2021) will see her debut poetry collection, Astral Weeks, Etc., published by Finishing Line Press on March 14, 2025
Tyler Odeneal (BA, 2019) has a new story, “Move,” out in Unwoven.
Congratulations to Jessica Lynn (BA, 2009), whose novella, Eye of a Needle, was published this past summer by Hell Hare House Short Reads.
Jenny Benjamin (MA, 1997) has a new chapbook out, Painted Women in the Walls, from Finishing Line Press.
Joshua Hren (BA, MA, PhD, 2011) has published his eleventh book, a novel, Blue Walls Falling Down.
LG Sebayan (PhD in progress) has a poem, “Sneakerhead Wife,” in the latest Calyx Journal.
Gabriel Mundo (PhD in progress) has an essay, “Margarita Night,” forthcoming in Black Warrior Review.
Congratulations to Matthew Wamser (BA, 2018), who was named one of this year’s fellows at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA.
Seth Copeland (PhD, 2024) will join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater this fall.
Congratulations to Ching-In Chen (PhD, 2015) on receiving a $50,000 Poet Laureate Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets!