Wednesday, November 5 | 7 pm
The Queensboro
80-02 Northern Blvd.
Jackson Heights, NY 11372
FREE
It’s after Halloween, so you know it will be safe to let your brain out in the storm–
Brainstorm, the reading series run by the students of the MFA program here at QC, is hosting its next session on Wednesday, November 5. Come listen to poetry, prose, and translation at the wonderful Queensboro!
Hope to see you there!
December 4 | 5 pm
Zoom
You’re a writer. Why wouldn’t you want to hone your craft in a place where language matters?
Located in the most culturally and linguistically diverse county in the nation, the Queens College MFA program attracts students dedicated to crossing boundaries in genre, craft, and language. Classes are small, mostly in the evening, and students work closely with faculty mentors. Join an exciting, creative community with affordable public university tuition in an urban environment with a verdant 80-acre campus.
Our MFA teaching faculty will be on hand to answer questions about the program, so come prepared to ask us anything about how classes are structured to what opportunities MFA students get to publish and work in their field!
Sign up via the Zoom link below, or just click on the image above!
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/VGgmLNm0Qf-fKepr9Xs6gg
We have exciting news: MFA student Cydni Thompson has been named as one of the recipients of the Poetry Coalition’s 2025-26 Fellowship Program. She’ll be working at the Poetry Society of America as part of the program over the next year.
The Poetry Coalition, a national alliance of nearly thirty poetry organizations, selects nine aspiring literary leaders from thousands of applicants each year for paid fellowships and career development opportunities at esteemed national literary organizations. Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Beyond Baroque, Kundiman, Lambda Literary, Mizna, The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University, Woodland Pattern, and Youth Speaks participate in this coalition, along with Poetry Society of America.
These fellows take part in poetry and community programming that reaches more than 30 million individuals annually. Getting to put their minds and voices to work on this scale ensures the vitality of the future of poetry and helps grow the next generation of nonprofit leadership.
The Academy of American Poets is a leading publisher of contemporary poetry across the United States. The organization annually awards $1.3+ million to more than two hundred poets at various stages of their careers through its prize program. It also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; established and organizes National Poetry Month each April; publishes the Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides free resources to educators; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition that promotes the value poets bring to our culture. To learn more about the Academy of American Poets, visit poets.org.
Congratulations, Cydni!
Our own director, Jason Tougaw, has a new piece in Queerty, exploring the 20-year career (so far!) of rapper Cazwell. This queering is more than a change of aesthetics, Cazwell’s music is about gay pride, refusing to hide one’s true self, as Jason puts it:
“Cazwell is an autobiographer of queer raunch, and the compilation chronicles the evolution of his persona from club kid to daddy.
But he’s no Eminem. He’s not telling stories about his damage. Instead, Cazwell declares the human right to sexual liberation. His queer raunch is as radical today as it was in 2003.”
Interested in reading more? Check out Jason Tougaw’s whole piece, “How Cazwell’s queered hip-hop with two decades of revolutionary raunch“
This year is the 25th birthday of Killing the Buddah, a magazine of religion, culture and politics, and we’re having a party! Please join us for PROOF OF LIFE: CELEBRATING 25 YEARS OF KILLING THE BUDDHA MAGAZINE on Saturday, October 18th, from 5-7:30pm at Judson Memorial Church on 55 Washington Square South in downtown New York City.
Come hear brief readings from KtBniks past, present, and future; learn about our brand new collaboration with The Commons; enjoy snacks and beverages and great company.
Check the Eventbrite link for more information!
It’s not often we post about journals looking to publish literary work (we tend to save that for talking with students and alums directly), but this one is different because it is our own.
The Queens Review is a student-run international literary journal that, by publishing writing from around the world, allows our students to enter a world greater than their own. The journal may have gone by a few different names since our program’s founding all those years ago, but by taking on this editorial work, our students have gone on to work for publishing houses, magazines, and presses (both big and small) around the country.
It’s another example of how self-starters can get their start at QC MFA!
The Queens Review takes its home seriously: we are based in the most culturally diverse place on the planet and the journal seeks work that speaks to the varied landscapes of the world around us, as well exploring the internal topography of our own internal terrain.
Submissions will be open from October 15 to December 15. Check out the Review’s Submittable for more info:
https://thequeensreview.submittable.com/submit
The journal is just one of the many chances we give our students to advance themselves outside of the classroom. Take a look at our Opportunities page to get a better idea of what path you might take:
Writers at Queens, the literary series for the entire Queens College community, has announced their lineup of events for the Fall 2025 semester, and it truly has something for everybody–
Want to write comics? Talk about the creative process with rockers? Celebrate with award-winning writers? (Which genre? You pick!) This lineup has it:
Monday, Oct 6: Visual Storytelling Day with comics artist (and QC alum!) Kelly Fernandez.
This event is part of Queens College’s celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month
Co-sponsored with the School of the Arts, the English Department, the MFA program in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, the Art Department, and the Latin American and Latino Studies Program.
Workshop 1: “Cartooning after College,” 12:15 pm, Klapper 672. Refreshments and books for sale.
Workshop 2: “The Life Cycle of a Graphic Novel,” 6:30 pm, Klapper 672. Refreshments and books for sale.
Wednesday, Oct 22: 7 pm: A Celebration of New York State Poet Laureate Kimiko Hahn
(co-sponsored with the English Dept, the MFA program in creative writing and literary translation, KCA and QCAP, AACS, and SOA). Le Frak auditorium.
Kimiko Hahn will read and be in conversation with MFA poetry alum Sonia Arora.
A reception and book signing will follow the event. (This event will also be live-streamed.)
Monday, Oct 27: 12:15-1:15. A talk by bestselling novelist Susan Isaacs, “A Life in the Arts.” (co-sponsored with SOA). Location TBA.
Susan Isaacs will be in conversation with QC sociology professor and novelist Dana Weinberg.
A reception will follow the event.
Monda,y Nov 17, 7 pm: Women Who Rock: A reading and conversation with writers Deborah Paredez and Ann Powers.
(co-sponsorships TBA) Choral Room, Music Building.
Jason Tougaw will conduct the conversation after the reading.
A reception and book signing will follow the event. (This event will also be live-streamed.)
Brooklyn Book Festival
11:00 am EST
September 21, 2025
Main Stage on Borough Hall Plaza
Columbus Park Brooklyn NY 11201 United States
Poets Kwame Dawes (Sturge Town), Kimiko Hahn (The Ghost Forest: New and Selected Poems), and Patricia Smith (The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems) will read poems that explore narrative, personal history, and beauty. Introduced by poet Tina Chang (Hybrida).
Monday, October 6, 2025 • Klapper Hall 672
Writers at Queens, our campus-wide event series, is proud to bring comics artist Kelly Fernandez to campus for a day of workshops on Monday, October 6.
Fernandez will be talking about her award-winning graphic novel, MANU, and teaching several hands-on workshops for both undergrads and graduates of the QC community:
12:15 pm (Free Hour)
Cartooning after College:
A Comics Workshop
6:30 pm
Life Cycle of a Graphic Novel:
A Comics Workshop
Hope to see you there!
BIO:
Kelly Fernández is a Dominican American cartoonist from Queens, New York. Her debut graphic novel, MANU, was published by Scholastic Graphix in November 2021. Since its publication, MANU received four-starred reviews, was recognized as one of the Washington Post’s Best Children’s Book of the Year, was the Silver Medal Winner at the 2022 International Latino Book Awards, and was recently included in Kirkus’s “Best Books for the 21st Century (So Far)” list. Fernández is employed as a children’s librarian by day and works on her second graphic novel by night.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
LIGHT REFRESHMENTS AND BOOKS FOR SALE
For more information, contact series director Nicole Cooley at [email protected] or visit qcenglish.commons.gc.cuny.edu/writers.
Co-sponsored by the Department of English, Department of Art, MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS), Office of the Dean of Arts and Humanities, School of Arts, and Office of the Provost in celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month.
| Join us to celebrate the book launch of Ammiel Alcalay‘s CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books with a reading by Ammiel Alcalay, music by Safira Berrada-Riggs on ‘oud and vocals, and an introduction and conversation with Zhora Saed. |
| Fri, Sep 19th, 6:00 PM. Martin E. Segal Theatre, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 5th Ave, NYC. Free and open to all. Registration required. |
| Join Lost & Found and Litmus Press for an evening of readings, music, and conversation to celebrate and launch poet, translator, critic, and scholarAmmiel Alcalay‘s highly-anticipated, monumental new book CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books (Litmus Press, 2025). Alcalay will be introduced by Zohra Saed, followed by a musical introduction by Safira Berrada-Riggs on ‘oud and vocals. CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books combines three of Ammiel Alcalay’s previously published poetic texts—Scrapmetal (2007), the cairo notebooks (1993), and from the warring factions (2002)—with a new work, “Controlled Demolition.” Unlike most writing categorized as “documentary” poetry, here the author and his process are constant reference points, serving as a prism to refract changes over time and circumstance in what becomes a mix of memoir, poetry, auto-critique, prose narrative, history, and investigative journalism by other means. Books will be available at the reading, which will be followed by a reception. Register to attend here. |
| About the Author |
| Poet, novelist, translator, essayist, critic, and scholar Ammiel Alcalay’s latest books are CONTROLLED DEMOLITION: a work in four books, his co-translation of Nasser Rabah’s Gaza: The Poem Said Its Piece, and the forthcoming Follow the Person: Archival Encounters. In 2017, he received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for his work as founder and General Editor of Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative; he is a Distinguished Professor at Queens College and the CUNY Graduate Center. |
