Raymond Carver Reading Series
The Raymond Carver Reading Series features twelve to fourteen prominent writers yearly as part of a large undergraduate class taught by TAs from the Creative Writing Program. The readings have an extended question-and-answer session along with a reading. Recent authors include Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, Jamaal May, Monica Youn, Brandon Taylor, Valeria Luiselli, Ilya Kaminsky, and Percival Everett.
Due to the generous support of Leonard and Elise Elman two distinguished authors each year spend two-day residencies at SU: the Richard Elman Visiting Writer and the Leonard and Elise Elman Visiting Writer. Learn more about the late Leonard Elman in this interview with Rob Enslin.
Past readings have been recorded and are in the process of being made available online by Bird Library at SUrface.
All readings take place in Watson Theater in Watson Hall. They begin at 5:00 p.m. and are preceded by a question-and-answer session that begins at 4:00 p.m. They are open to the public.
Fall 2025 Writers
Debbie Urbanski
September 10, 2025
Photo by Stella Urbanski
Debbie Urbanski’s writing focuses on the intersections of horror, fantasy, science fiction, memoir, and/or the planet. Her climate AI novel After World (S&S, 2023) was named a best book of the year by the San Francisco Chronicle, Engadget, Strange Horizons, Booklist, and the Los Angeles Times. Her collection of stories Portalmania was published by S&S in May 2025.
Lidia Yuknavitch, the Jane and Daniel Present Lecturer
September 25, 2025
Photo by Miles Mingo
Lidia Yuknavitch is the author of four novels: Thrust, The Book of Joan, Dora: A Headcase, and The Small Backs of Children, winner of the 2016 Oregon Book Awards Ken Kesey Award for Fiction as well as the OBA Reader's Choice Award. She has also published a critical book on war and narrative, Allegories Of Violence (Routledge). The Misfit's Manifesto, a book based on her TED Talk, was published by TED Books in 2017. Verge, a collection of short fiction, was released in 2020. Her widely acclaimed memoir The Chronology of Water was a finalist for a PEN Center USA award for creative nonfiction and winner of a PNBA Award and the Oregon Book Award Reader's Choice. Her newest memoir Reading the Waves was published by Riverhead Books in 2025.
Mosab Abu Toha
October 8, 2025
Photo by Mohamed Mahdy
The winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and writer from Gaza. He is the author of two poetry collections: Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear (City Lights, 2022) and Forest of Noise (Knopf, 2024). In 2023, he graduated from Syracuse University’s M.F.A. program in creative writing.
Paula Saunders
October 29, 2025
Photo by Stewart Shining
Paula Saunders grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota. She is a graduate of the Syracuse University creative writing program and was awarded a postgraduate Albert Schweitzer Fellowship at the State University of New York at Albany, under Schweitzer chair Toni Morrison. Her first book The Distance Home was longlisted for the Center for Fiction 2018 First Novel Prize and named as one of The Best Books of 2018 by REAL SIMPLE. Her second book Starting from Here will be published on August 26, 2025. She lives in California with her husband. They have two grown daughters.
francine j. harris
November 12, 2025
francine j harris’s most recent book of poetry is Here is the Sweet Hand (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2020), winner of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry. Her second book play dead (Alice James, 2017) won a LAMBDA Literary Award, a Publishing Triangle Award, and was nominated for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry. Her debut collection Allegiance (Wayne State University Press, 2012) was a finalist for both the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and the PEN Open Book Award. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and Cave Canem.
Bruce Smith
December 3, 2025
Bruce Smith is the author of several books of poems, including Spill (2018), Devotions (2011), Songs for Two Voices (2005), and The Other Lover (2000), a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. His latest collection Hungry Ghost will be published in October 2025. He has received a Guggenheim Fellowship as well as grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Foundation for the Arts. His work has appeared in Best American Poetry (2003 and 2004) and the 2009 Pushcart Prize anthology. He has taught at the University of Alabama and Syracuse University.