Mills College MFA & Lit Programs

For the past few weeks, our graduates have amazed us with their takeovers and WIPs. This Thursday we get to come together to celebrate them as they complete their journeys.

We invite all friends, family, and fans of the Class of 2023 MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Literature and Languages to celebrate with us. A wonderful night of food, thesis presentations, and congratulations is planned.

Our poets have some amazing work they are ready to send out to the world. Join us, hear them, love it all. Sunday, April 23 at the Art Museum Plaza. We start at 2:00 with food and drinks, and readings will begin at 2:30.

MFA Creative Candidates:
Caroline Gasparini reading “Dirt & Other Beautiful Things”
Dana DeFranco reading “Place in Space”
Em Marie Kohl reading “un/common time”
Griffin Jing Martin reading “[to be] The Malevolent Form”

AND we are very lucky to have MFA Book Art candidate Lyn Patterson joining us as well reading “revolutionary love letters”

Link to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/works-in-progress-tickets-618498745397

Don't forget to come to the Mills Hall Living Room tomorrow night to hear our MFA Creative Writing, Prose candidates read their Works in Progress!

Doors will open at 5:30pm with catered food and drinks. Readings will begin at 6:00pm. Registration link can be found in our bio.


Writer, mother, teacher, pickle lover

Catherine Plato
Lover of consensual head games

Kimberly Wainscoat
Hey, I’m here now

Lindsay Krumbein
Writer, teacher, reader, creative. Spicy.


three little birds on my doorstep

Next Sunday will be the Poets turn! We are so excited to hear our MFA Creative Writing, Poetry candidates read their Works in Progress next weekend!

Sunday, April 23, on the Arts Steps Plaza is where you want to be. Catered food and drinks will begin at 2:00pm. Readings will begin at 2:30pm.

Registration link is in our bio.

We are so excited to hear our MFA Creative Writing, Prose candidates read their Works in Progress Tuesday night. We also have the amazing Patricia Powell reading some of her newest work!

Tuesday, April 18, in the Mills Hall Living Room is where you want to be. Doors open at 5:30pm with catered food and drinks. Readings will begin at 6:00pm.

Registration link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/works-in-progress-tickets-617456498007

Please join us next Tuesday as our MFA Creative Writing, Prose candidates read from their current work. Help us celebrate our final MFA class. Doors will open at 5:30pm with a catered reception, and the readings will begin at 6:00pm.

Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/works-in-progress-tickets-617456498007

Join us tonight for Jessica Hairston’ official chapbook reading: Power of our Wombs. Doors will open at 5:00pm with catered food from iLava Hawaiian BBQ and thank you gifts. The reading will begin at 5:45pm and include a writing activity. We can't wait for you to join us!

Registration is required. Link is in our bio.

Are you interested in topics such as: ‘The Power of Wombyn’, ‘The Wounded Womb’, ‘the Chaotic Erotic’, the way ‘bodies’ store memory, and misogynoir? Come celebrate Black Women’s Appreciation Month with fellow Mills student —Jessica “Je’mani” Hairston— who has published their first chapbook Power of Our Wombs (Nomadic Press, 2023).

Power Of Our Wombs is a part of the spring 2023 Nomadic Press chapbook cohort. Je’Mani invites you to come and celebrate the birth of their first book. Please join us for a night of readings from their new book, as well as accompanied readings from Mimi Tempestt, author of Monumental Misrememberings, and Tureeda Mikell author of Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine.

Here I end my takeover for the day! Thank you for following along ❤️

Temple is one of my favorite coffee shops to do work. Living with kids can sometimes be distracting so I always make sure I have some time for myself.

I live with both my nephews and every day they surprise me with what they do. They’re both very artistic and the older one who is 7 made this book 🥹 he inspired me to create my reading program for my thesis.

This is Camden. She’s my study buddy and helps me stay on task!

I’ve written critical essays on children’s literature, how children learn different from adults and how children read and understand text.

These are the text books that have helped me with those essays and that can also help with my thesis in addition to the books about publishing a children’s book. Authors use a variety of languages and literary devices to help make stories for children engaging and an easy read. These books has helped me with those sections in my thesis!

In the end of my thesis, I write about a reading program that I would create If I could. The name of the program is “Little Reader’s Club” and there are 3 rooms dedicated for different reading experiences. The reading tutoring program room, Open area space for a circle time read out loud and a publishing room where kids can create their own books, drawing out their illustrations and writing out the story.

Are you interested in topics such as: ‘The Power of Wombyn’, ‘The Wounded Womb’, ‘the Chaotic Erotic’, the way ‘bodies’ store memory, and misogynoir? Come celebrate Black Women’s Appreciation Month with fellow Mills student —Jessica “Je’mani” Hairston— who has published their first chapbook Power of Our Wombs ( 2023).

Power Of Our Wombs is a part of the spring 2023 Nomadic Press chapbook cohort. Je’Mani invites you to come and celebrate the birth of their first book. Please join us for a night of readings from their new book, as well as accompanied readings from .tempestt, author of Monumental Misrememberings, and Tureeda Mikell author of Synchronicity: The Oracle of Sun Medicine.
Doors will open at 5:00pm with catered food and thank you gifts. The reading will begin at 5:45pm and include a writing activity. We can't wait for you to join us!

Registration link is in our bio.

Posted • .w.olinlibrary A reminder to join us as we celebrate faculty authors and their recent books! This Wednesday at 4:30pm!

Readings by:
Elmaz Abinader
Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer
Juan Colomina-Alminaña
Cliff Lee
Kim Magowan
Kirsten Saxton
Tom Strychacz
Stephanie Young

Reception and refreshments to follow!

Sponsored by F. W. Olin Library, the Mills College Center for the Book, and the Office of the Dean, .



Image description: Graphic featuring a pale, yellow background and a green border with brown highlights. A large, light-blue star is also in the background. The text on the graphic is blue and brown. It reads: "Celebrating faculty authors. Wednesday, April 5, 4:30-6:00pm. Heller Rare Book Room, F. W. Olin Library. Join us for readings by: lmaz Abinader, Natalee Kēhaulani Bauer, Juan Colomina-Alminaña, Cliff Lee, Kim Magowan, Kirsten Saxton
Tom Strychacz, Stephanie Young"

Tonight, Danyel Smith, author of “Shine Bright,” will be reading at the Mills College campus of Northeastern University. The reading will take place in the Mills Hall Living Room. Doors will open at 5:00pm with light snacks and drinks, and the reading will begin at 5:30pm.
A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia” on the family stereo.

Smith’s detailed narrative begins with Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who sang her poems, and continues through the stories of Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, as well as the under-considered careers of Marilyn McCoo, Deniece Williams, and Jody Watley.

Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight—and the book Danyel Smith was born to write.
Registration link is in our bio.
Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices

Danyel Smith, creator and host of the Spotify podcast “Black Girl Songbook”, will be at the Mills College campus of Northeastern University on Tuesday, March 28. The reading will take place in the Mills Hall Living Room. Doors will open at 5:00pm with light snacks and drinks, and the reading will begin at 5:30pm.
Welcome to ‘Black Girl Songbook.’ Join author and former Vibe editor-in-chief Danyel Smith as she celebrates and uplifts the talents of Black women in the music industry. Tune in for in-depth discussions with your favorite songwriters, producers, and artists, as well as anecdotes from Danyel. Plus, you’ll hear the songs of Black women who changed the landscape of American music forever.
Registration link is in our bio.
Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices

Danyel Smith will be reading for us next Tuesday, March 28, 5:30pm in the Mills Hall Living Room. Doors will open at 5:00pm with light snacks and drinks. Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/danyel-smith-tickets-596039920447

Award-winning journalist Danyel Smith is author of the critically-acclaimed Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop (One World / Random House, April 2022). Danyel is also creator/host of Black Girl Songbook, a podcast that centers the sounds and stories of black women (The Ringer/Spotify Original). Danyel’s CV includes being a producer and writer at ESPN, a Knight fellow at Stanford University, an arts fellow at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, and a 2021 Yaddo fellow. She was editor of Billboard, and the first woman and first black person to serve as editor-in-chief of VIBE. She has written two novels — More Like Wrestling (Crown, 2003) and Bliss (Crown, 2005), and Danyel’s recent work appears in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and at NPR. Danyel lives in Southern California with her husband.

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices Oakland

Thank you so much for being a part of my takeover! If you want to keep up to date with all that I am doing feel free to follow me on instagram

Thank you so much for being a part of my takeover! If you want to keep up to date with all that I am doing feel free to follow me on instagram

I love to listen to music when I write. It helps me feel motivated and gets me through those more challenging writing periods. Two playlist I used when writing my thesis in the fall were a throwback 2000’s-2010’s playlist of my favorite songs I listened to growing up and then a combined playlist of folklore and evermore by Taylor Swift. Both have different vibes but are perfect. My newest addition is a spring themed playlist perfect for wanting a feeling of airiness when writing.

One of my favorite spots to work at is the F. W. Olin Library. The big windows make you feel like you are part of the greenery outside. I love the view from the large windows and the quiet ambiance makes for the perfect writing sprints.

Due to a power outage on campus, this event will now be on zoom only. Be sure to register on Eventbrite to get the link.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bonnie-tsui-tickets-570959734937

Thank you everyone for your patience with us and this event.

Sponsored by We Are The Voices Oakland

TOMORROW night Bonnie Tsui will read from her newest book Why We Swim. Doors will open at 6:00pm with light snacks and drinks, and the reading will begin at 6:30pm.

Registration is required. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bonnie-tsui-tickets-570959734937

We swim in freezing Arctic waters and piranha-infested rivers to test our limits. We swim for pleasure, for exercise, for healing. But humans, unlike other animals that are drawn to water, are not naturalborn swimmers. We must be taught. Our evolutionary ancestors learned for survival; today, swimming is one of the most popular activities in the world. Why We Swim is propelled by stories of Olympic champions, a Baghdad swim club that meets in Saddam Hussein’s former palace pool, modern-day Japanese samurai swimmers, and even an Icelandic fisherman who improbably survives a wintry six-hour swim after a shipwreck. New York Times contributor Bonnie Tsui, a swimmer herself, dives into the deep, from the San Francisco Bay to the South China Sea, investigating what it is about water that seduces us, and why we come back to it again and again.

An immersive, unforgettable, and eye-opening perspective on swimming—and on human behavior itself.

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are the Voices

Join us next Tuesday as we hear Bonnie Tsui read from her newest book Why We Swim. Doors will open at 6:00pm with light snacks and drinks, and the reading will begin at 6:30pm.

Registration is required. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bonnie-tsui-tickets-570959734937

Bonnie Tsui is a longtime contributor to The New York Times and the author of American Chinatown, winner of the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Her latest book, Why We Swim, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice and a Time magazine and NPR Best Book of 2020; it is currently being translated into nine languages. Her first children’s book, Sarah and the Big Wave, about the first woman to surf Northern California’s Mavericks, was published in 2021. Her work has been recognized and supported by Harvard University, the National Press Foundation, and the Mesa Refuge.

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices Oakland

It’s happening tonight! Sara Uribe and Holly Melgard will be reading their poetry at Mills College. Doors will open at 6:00pm, the reading will begin promptly at 6:30pm, and there will be a reception following the reading.

Registration is required. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sara-uribe-holly-melgard-tickets-541504814477

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices

Poet Holly Melgard will be reading at Mills College next Tuesday, February 28 along with Sara Uribe. Doors will open at 6:00pm, the reading will begin promptly at 6:30pm, and there will be a reception following the reading.

Holly Melgard's Fetal Position (Roof, 2021) is her first book with an outside publisher, after a decade of self-publishing on the experimental platform Troll Thread press, which she designs, co-founded, and co-edits. Jackie Ess named it one of Artforum’s “Best of 2021.” On Troll Thread, she authored Poems for Baby trilogy, The Making of The Americans, and Black Friday, among others. With her fellow co-editor Joey Yearous-Algozin, she also co-authored White Trash and Liquidation (Troll Thread). Having appeared in BOMB Magazine and The Best American Experimental Writing Anthology, her poems have been translated into Spanish, Slovenian, and German. With a PhD from the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Program, she currently lives in Brooklyn where she designs books and teaches writing at New York University and City University of New York. Her new book Read Me: Holly Melgard Selected Works (Ugly Duckling Presse) is forthcoming in June 2023.

Registration is required https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sara-uribe-holly-melgard-tickets-541504814477

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices

Next Tuesday, February 28, Sara Uribe will be reading along with Holly Melgard at the Mills College campus. Doors will open at 6:00pm, the reading will begin promptly at 6:30pm, and there will be a reception following the reading.

Sara Uribe is a Mexican poet who explores the relationship between poetry, body, ethics and politics. Her most recent books are Un montón de escritura para nada (A lot of writing for nothing) (Dharma, 2019), Abroche su cinturón mientras esté sentado (Fasten your seatbelt while seated) (Filodecaballos, 2017) and Antígona González, translated by John Pluecker (Le Figues Press, 2016). Her work has been translated into English, German, Norwegian and French.

Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sara-uribe-holly-melgard-tickets-541504814477

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices

We can’t wait for tonight! Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Q***r Black Feminist Love Evangelist, is in Oakland and ready! Doors will open at 6:00, reading will begin at 6:30, and there will be a hosted reception after for those in attendance.

There are zoom tickets still available. Link is in our bio.

Alexis’s work with her primary collaborator Sangodare has shown the world a Q***r Black Feminist Love Ethic in practice. Over the past 11 years they have nurtured the Mobile Homecoming Project, an experiential archive amplifying generations of Black LGBTQ Brilliance which has consisted of listening tour of the United States (in a 1988 Winnebago!) 7 intergenerational retreats and pilgrimages in the Southeast US, a media and audio archive of many Black Feminist LGBTQ elders and is now in the land stewardship phase of building a living library and archive that serves as an all ages independent and assisted living community of intergenerational learning and love. Sangodare and Alexis are also the co-founders of Black Feminist Film School, an initiative to screen, study and produce films with a Black feminist ethic. Sangodare and Alexis have also collaborated on the exhibition Breathing Back at the Carrack Gallery in Durham, NC and more than 50 visits to campuses, organizations and conferences in the United States.

Join us Tuesday, February 21 as Alexis Pauline Gumbs reads at the Mills College campus of Northeastern University in the Mills Hall Living Room. Doors will open at 6:00pm, the reading will begin at 6:30pm, and there will be a reception following.

Registration link is in our bio.

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices

(tag WATV_Oakland)

We are looking forward to Sara Uribe and Holly Melgard reading at the Mills College campus of Northeastern University on Tuesday, February 28. Doors will open at 6:00pm, the reading will begin at 6:30pm, and there will be a reception following the reading.

Sara Uribe is a Mexican poet who explores the relationship between poetry, body, ethics and politics. Her most recent books are Un montón de escritura para nada (A lot of writing for nothing) (Dharma, 2019), Abroche su cinturón mientras esté sentado (Fasten your seatbelt while seated) (Filodecaballos, 2017) and Antígona González, translated by John Pluecker (Le Figues Press, 2016). Her work has been translated into English, German, Norwegian and French.

Holly Melgard's Fetal Position (Roof, 2021) is her first book with an outside publisher, after a decade of self-publishing on the experimental platform Troll Thread press, which she designs, co-founded, and co-edits. Jackie Ess named it one of Artforum’s “Best of 2021.” On Troll Thread, she authored Poems for Baby trilogy, The Making of The Americans, and Black Friday, among others. With her fellow co-editor Joey Yearous-Algozin, she also co-authored White Trash and Liquidation (Troll Thread). Having appeared in BOMB Magazine and The Best American Experimental Writing Anthology, her poems have been translated into Spanish, Slovenian, and German. With a PhD from the SUNY Buffalo Poetics Program, she currently lives in Brooklyn where she designs books and teaches writing at New York University and City University of New York. Her new book Read Me: Holly Melgard Selected Works (Ugly Duckling Presse) is forthcoming in June 2023.

Registration is required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/sara-uribe-holly-melgard-tickets-541504814477

Presented by the Contemporary Writers Series and We Are The Voices Oakland