Delbrook Visiting Writers Series
For nearly 40 years, the Vivian S. Delbrook Visiting Writers Series has regularly hosted public readings and Q&A sessions with some of the most influential people in contemporary literature. Visiting authors such as Toni Morrison, Billy Collins, Kurt Vonnegut, Gwendolyn Brooks, Margaret Atwood, Allen Ginsberg, Sharon Olds, Amy Tan, and Colson Whitehead not only share their work with the Indianapolis community but also interact directly with undergraduate and graduate students in Butler’s English classes and MFA program.
Butler offers a 300-level English course that features the work of authors in the Visiting Writers Series. Students taking this class are invited to join English faculty in a private dinner with each writer when they visit campus, and have the opportunity to formally introduce the writers at their public readings.
The Visiting Writers Program is coordinated by the Department of English and offers 10–12 events each year, all of which are free and open to Butler students, faculty, and staff as well as the Indianapolis community, making the Butler University Visiting Writers Series one of the largest and most comprehensive in the country.
Fall 2024 Speakers
Hernan Diaz
Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction
Event Date: Tuesday, September 17 at 7:30PM
Location: Schrott Center for the Arts
Hernan Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of two novels translated into thirty-four languages. He is the recipient of the John Updike award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, given to “a writer whose contributions to American literature have demonstrated consistent excellence.”
His first novel, In the Distance, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and it was the winner of the Saroyan International Prize, the Cabell Award, the Prix Page America, and the New American Voices Award, among other distinctions. It was also a Publishers Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year and one of Lit Hub’s 20 Best Novels of the Decade.
Trust, his second novel, received the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was a New York Timesbestseller, the winner of the Kirkus Prize, and longlisted for the Booker Prize, among other nominations. It was listed as a best book of the year by over thirty publications and named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and Timemagazine, and it was one of The New Yorker’s 12 Essential Reads of the Year. One of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2022, Trust is currently being developed as a limited series for HBO.
Diaz has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and fellowships from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, and The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. He holds a PhD from NYU and edits an academic journal at Columbia University.
Shane McCrae
Whiting and Lannan Literary Award Winner
Event Date: Monday, October 7 at 7:30PM
Location: Schrott Center for the Arts
Shane McCrae’s most recent books of poetry are Cain Named the Animal, a finalist for the Forward Prize and longlisted for the PEN/Voelcker Award, and The Many Hundreds of the Scent. His powerful memoir, Pulling the Chariot of the Sun, published in 2023, describes his traumatic upbringing after being kidnapped by his grandparents when he was 3 years old. Also in 2023, he was awarded the Arthur Rense Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.Other awards include a Lannan Literary Award and a Whiting Writer’s Award. McCrae has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. He lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Eden Robinson
Award-Winning Indigenous Writer and Storyteller
Event Date: Monday, October 28 at 7:30PM
Location: Shelton Auditorium
Eden Robinson is an award-winning Indigenous writer from Canada. She is a member of theHaisla and Heiltsuk First Nations. Eden is the author of the short storycollection Traplines (1995). Traplines won the Winifred Holtby Prize for best first work of fiction and was a New York Times Notable Book. Her second book Monkey Beach (2000), a novel, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award. Monkey Beach was awarded with the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Eden’s third novel, Blood Sports, was published in 2006 and revisits characters from Traplines.
Eden recently finished writing the Trickster-trilogy: Son of a Trickster (2017), Trickster Drift (2018) and, Return of the Trickster (2021) all published by Knopf Canada. Son of a Trickster was shortlisted for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Moreover, Son of a Trickster was a finalist of the 2020 edition of Canada Reads. Trickster Drift won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 2019.
Aisha Sabatini Sloan
Lambda Literary Award Winner
Event Date: Thursday, November 7 at 7:30PM
Location: Eidson-Duckwall Recital Hall
Aisha Sabatini Sloan was born and raised in Los Angeles. She earned a BA in English from Carleton College, an MA in Cultural Studies and Studio Art from the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at NYU, and an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Arizona. She is the author of The Fluency of Light, Dreaming of Ramadi in Detroit, Borealis, and Captioning the Archives. She is the winner of the CLMP Firecracker Award, the 1913 Open Prose Contest, the National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary, the Jean Córdovaprize for Lesbian/Queer Nonfiction, the Lambda Literary Awards for Bisexual Nonfiction, and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Her essays can be found in Ecotone, Ninth Letter, Callaloo, Autostraddle, Guernica, The Paris Review, The New York Times, Gulf Coast, The Yale Review, among other places. She is an assistant professor of English at the University of Michigan.
Kwame Dawes
Emmy -Winning Jamaican Poet & Writer and Windham-Campbell Award Winner
Event Date: Tuesday, November 19 at 7:30PM
Location: Shelton Auditorium
Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays. His most recent collection is Sturge Town (Peepal Tree Press, UK 2023). Dawes is a George W. Holmes University Professor of English and Glenna Luschei Editor of Prairie Schooner. He teaches in the Pacific MFA Program and is the Series Editor of the African Poetry Book Series, Director of the African Poetry Book Fund, and Artistic Director of the Calabash International Literary Festival. He is a Chancellor for the Academy of American Poets and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kwame Dawes is the winner of the prestigious Windham/Campbell Award for Poetry and was a finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In 2022 Dawes was awarded the Order of Distinction Commander class by the Government of Jamaica.
The Visiting Writers Series appreciates the generous support of the Vivian S. Delbrook Fund and the NEH Ayres Fund.
To make special arrangements for school groups, book clubs, and community organizations, call 317-940-9861.
Most Visiting Writers Series events take place in Shelton Auditorium or Schrott Center for the Arts, both of which are located on Butler University’s campus. Shelton Auditorium is located at 1000 West 42nd St. on Butler University’s South Campus. This location offers free on-site surface parking in the lots off Haughey Street and West 42nd Street.
Driving directions from your location to Shelton Auditorium.
Map of South Campus with Shelton Auditorium and Parking Lot.
Schrott Center for the Arts is located right on Butler University’s main campus at 610 W. 46th St., with paid parking available at the nearby Sunset Avenue garage
For accessibility information or to request disability-related accommodations, please click here.