Professor Kimiko Hahn joined First Lady Jill Biden and Kishida Yuko, wife of Prime Minister Kishida Fumio, in a cultural program as part of an official visit to Washington, just last week.

Fresh off the heels of winning the Ruth Lilly lifetime achievement award from the Poetry Foundation, Kimiko led writing exercises with a group of local high school students, which drew from her heritage and celebrated Japanese culture. The First Lady, who is herself a former teacher of writing, of course knew that Kimiko Hahn would be a great choice to lead this workshop in honor of the Japanese ambassador’s visit.

If you want to see some of this special event, you can watch the video from The White House YouTube page:

Congratulations, Kimiko!

We are so excited to announce that our program’s next Visiting Professor will be the award-winning author Alaya Dawn Johnson!

One of the great things about our MFA Program here at Queens College is that we invite a new writer to teach with us every year so that students can dive further into different aspects and genres of writing and get a fresh perspective on their work. Johnson, who writes fantasy for both adults and young adults, will open up unique doors for our students studying under her.

We’ve included a bio below, but you can also read more about her work here on her website!

Welcome to Queens, Alaya!

BIO:

Alaya Dawn Johnson is an award-winning short story writer and the author of eight novels for adults and young adults. Her novel Trouble the Saints won the 2021 World Fantasy Award for best novel. Her debut short story collection, Reconstruction, was an Ignyte Award and a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award finalist. Her debut YA novel The Summer Prince was longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Her short stories have appeared in many magazines and anthologies, most notably the title story in The Memory Librarian, in collaboration with Janelle Monáe.