Recent News
POLY ETHNIC STUDIES MAJOR WINS ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS PRIZE TWO YEARS RUNNING
Jun 3, 2026
Zora Sowinska, a Cal Poly student majoring in Ethnic Studies and minoring in English, has won the Academy of American Poets Contest for a second year in a row. This year, she won for her poem “A foray into the state of orphanhood.” She will receive a $100 award from the Academy and will also be considered for the Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award, which comes with a cash prize of $1,000 and publication in American Poets magazine.
Judge Jessica Smith had this to say of “A foray into the state of orphanhood”:
This poem has a striking ability to transform intimacy into landscape. Through meandering turns and surprising language, it explores loneliness, desire, displacement, identity, and the fear women learn early with tenderness and precision. The speaker moves through food, sense memory, anxiety, and love in ways that feel both deeply personal and immediately recognizable, crafting lines like “I die twice / trying to cross the street, but no worries.” Rich with unexpected similes such as “good big / and bland like fresh jicama” and cinematic detail, this work captures the strange beauty of becoming someone new while carrying every version of yourself at once.
Honorable mention goes to English major Diana Boboc for her poem “Bad Dogs Don’t Bark.” Smith noted how the poem “is visceral, using vivid imagery and sharp symbolism to explore repression, fear, and buried instinct. The poem is carefully crafted – packing dense, musical, violent imagery into one impactful stanza.”
Jessica Smith is the author of Lady Smith (University of Akron Press, 2025). Originally from Georgia, she is an Associate Professor of Practice at Texas Tech University, where she also directs the MFA in creative writing. Her poetry, essays, and criticism can be found in Prairie Schooner, The Cincinnati Review, Waxwing, 32 Poems, The Rumpus, and other journals. She received her MFA from The New School and is the recipient of support from the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and the Vermont Studio Center.
The Cal Poly English Department and the Academy of American Poets, which is a longstanding advocate for the art of poetry and is located in New York City, sponsor the contest. The winning poem is available to read here, and Sowinska’s “A Visit to Lisamu’” will also appear on the University & College Poetry Prize page of Poets.org.
Writers-at-Work Reading Series Presents: Lisa Glatt
May 20, 2026
Please join us on Monday, June 1st at 2:10pm for the final Writers-at-Work reading event for the academic year:
LISA GLATT is the author of the novels The Nakeds and A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times first fiction award. She has also published a collection of stories, The Apple's Bruise, and two books of poetry, Shelter and Monsters & Other Lovers. Her work has appeared in such magazines as Zoetrope: All-Story, Gulf Coast, Mississippi Review, Indiana Review, Pearl, The Sun, and Salon.com. Lisa teaches at California State University, Long Beach and is married to writer David Hernandez.
Lisa is currently working on a collection of essays on generational illness and the body. This reading corresponds with an essay publication in The Sun, titled "The Feeding," which she will read from. Q&A and craft conversation to follow.
Zoom Link:
https://calpoly.zoom.us/j/83843279344
Writers-at-Work Reading Series Presents: Poets Lynne Thomspon & Mira Rosenthal
Apr 13, 2026
Cal Poly’s Writers-at-Work series is very pleased to be hosting former LA Poet Laureate Lynne Thompson along with Professor of Creative Writing Mira Rosenthal on Wednesday, May 6th at 4:10 pm in Building 10, Room 200. Please see attached flyer and the readers’ bios below. Please arrive on time or early; space is limited.
Lynne Thompson was the 4th Poet Laureate for the City of Los Angeles. The daughter of Caribbean immigrants, her poetry collections include Beg No Pardon (2007), winner of the Perugia Press Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association’s New Writers Award; Start With A Small Guitar (2013), from What Books Press; and Fretwork (2019), winner of the Marsh Hawk Press Poetry Prize. Thompson’s honors include the Tucson Festival of Books Literary Award (poetry) and the Stephen Dunn Prize for Poetry as well as fellowships from the City of Los Angeles, Vermont Studio Center, and the Summer Literary Series in Kenya. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, Poetry, Poem-A-Day (Academy of American Poets), New England Review, Colorado Review, Pleiades, Ecotone, and Best American Poetry, to name a few.
Mira Rosenthal is an American poet and translator of Polish-language writers such as Tomasz Różycki, Małgorzata Lebda, and Krystyna Dąbrowska. Her work has received the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and the Found in Translation Award, among other recognitions, and twice has been nominated for the Griffin Poetry Prize as well as for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, the National Translation Award, and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. She is the author of Territorial, a Pitt Poetry Series selection and finalist for the INDIES Book of the Year award, and The Local World, winner of the Wick Poetry Prize. Her honors include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University, two Fulbright Fellowships, a grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, and residencies at Hedgebrook, MacDowell, and the Jan Michalski Foundation.
Please contact Lauren Henley at lihenley@calpoly.edu with questions.
Imagining the Worst: An Invitation to the Mythical, Mystical, and Macabre
Apr 6, 2026
Writers-at-Work Presents : CA Conrad
Apr 6, 2026
Writers-at-Work Reading Series Presents : Amy Silverberg
Feb 11, 2026
We are thrilled to announce that writer and comedian Amy Silverberg will be visiting Cal Poly, SLO this quarter as a part of the English Department's Writers-at-Work Reading Series. Silverberg will read from her debut novel First Time, Long Time on March 5th at 4:10pm in building 10-227. This reading is open to faculty, students, and the public, and I appreciate your help publicizing this event on campus. A reading flyer with event information is attached to this email.
Amy Silverberg is a writer and comedian based in Los Angeles. Her short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, The Paris Review, Granta, The Southern Review, TriQuarterly, The Colorado Review, and elsewhere. Her debut novel First Time, Long Time came out this year from Grand Central Publishing / Hachette. It was heralded as a must-read from Oprah Daily, W Magazine, Book Riot and elsewhere. Amy's standup comedy has appeared on Comedy Central, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and NPR. She also writes for television, most recently "The Movie Show" on the SYFY Channel. She holds a PhD in Literature & Creating Writing from USC, where she currently teaches.
A short synopsis for FIRST TIME, LONG TIME:
In this funny, high-spirited novel, a lost young woman stumbles into a relationship with a much older man—only to have her world (and identity) upended by his attraction to his adult daughter. Allison is piecing together a living through adjunct teaching and facilitating book clubs for rich women when she meets Reid, a radio shock-jock DJ whom she falls for in a subconscious, misguided attempt to reconnect with her troubled father. But when Reid’s daughter enters the picture, Allison is forced to reckon with aspects of her past she has long tried to outrun and possibilities for her future she has never imagined. The book humorously describes a lesser-seen side of Los Angeles: the unglamorous neighborhood of Van Nuys, the shame and humiliations of fame, the agony of trying—and failing— to be someone else, and the thrill of discovering yourself along the way.
Hope to see you there!
Writers-at-Work Poetry Reading Series, Winter 2026
Jan 15, 2026
https://calpoly.zoom.us/j/82588816751
Writers-at-Work Poetry Reading Series, Winter 2024
Feb 9, 2024
MT Vallarta
Wednesday, February 14, 2:10-3:30, Building 38, Room 221
MT Vallarta (they/them) is a poet and Assistant Professor of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. They will be reading from their debut collection What You Refuse to Remember. A Pushcart Prize nominee, they are the author of the micro chapbook, The Science of Flowers (Blanket Sea). They have received awards and fellowships from Kundíman, Roots. Wounds. Words., The Rowan Foundation, and Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. Their poetry is published and forthcoming in The Selkie, Shō, Nat. Brut, Apogee, and others. They are hard at work on a research monograph titled Dismantle Me: Queer, Mad, and Anti-imperialist Filipinx Poetry. They were raised in Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles.
Tomasz Różycki
(with translator Mira Rosenthal)
Monday, March 4, 2:10-3:30, University Union, Room 220
Tomasz Różycki is the author of more than a dozen books of poetry and prose. He will be reading from his new collection in English translation, To the Letter. Over the last decade he has garnered almost every prize Poland has to offer as well as widespread critical acclaim, with work translated into numerous languages and frequent appearances at international festivals. He is the recipient of the 2023 Wisława Szymborska Prize and the 2023 Prix Grand Continent, among other awards. In the U.S., he has been featured at the Unterberg Poetry Center, the Princeton Poetry Festival, and the Brooklyn Book Festival. His volume Colonies (translated by Mira Rosenthal) won the Northern California Book Award and was a finalist for numerous other prizes, including the International Griffin Poetry Prize and the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize.
Cal Poly English Alumni debut Abraxas Review
Oct 23, 2023
Abraxas Review is a new pubication started by an all Cal Poly English Alumni team of editors: Marin Smith, Savannah Anderson, Sholeh Prochello, Sarah Horne, and Lacey Buck.
Follow the link to Issue 1 of Abraxas Review, which includes Kevin Anderson's short story "The Thin Dust of Summer." Enjoy!
https://www.abraxasreview.org/issue-one
Writers-at-Work Poetry Reading Series Fall 2023
Oct 11, 2023
Ama Codjoe
Pre-Register HERE
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude (Milkweed Editions, 2022), finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry and the Paterson Poetry Prize, and Blood of the Air (Northwestern University Press, 2020), winner of the Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. She has been awarded support from Bogliasco, Cave Canem, Robert Rauschenberg, and Saltonstall foundations as well as from Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, Hedgebrook, Yaddo, Hawthornden, MacDowell, and the Amy Clampitt Residency. Her poems have twice appeared in the Best American Poetry series. Among other honors, Codjoe has received fellowships from the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bronx Council on the Arts, the New York State Council/New York Foundation of the Arts, and the Jerome Foundation. Codjoe is the 2023 Poet-in-Residence at the Guggenheim Museum. She is the winner of a 2023 Whiting Award.
Claire Wahmanholm
Wednesday, November 15 at 2:10 - 3:30 p.m. Building 10, Room 111
Claire Wahmanholm received her BA from UW-Madison, her MFA from the Writing Seminars at the Johns Hopkins University, and her PhD from the University of Utah. Her chapbook, Night Vision, won the 2017 New Michigan Press/DIAGRAM chapbook contest. Her debut full-length collection, Wilder (Milkweed Editions), won the 2018 Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry, the Society of Midland Authors Award for Poetry, and was a finalist for the 2019 Minnesota Book Award. Her second collection, Redmouth, was published with Tinderbox Editions in 2019. Her third collection, Meltwater, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in 2023. A 2020-2021 McKnight Writing Fellow, her poems have most recently appeared in, or are forthcoming from, TriQuarterly, Ninth Letter, Blackbird, Washington Square Review, Copper Nickel, Beloit Poetry Journal, Grist, RHINO, The Los Angeles Review, Fairy Tale Review, Bennington Review, DIAGRAM, The Journal, and The Kenyon Review Online, and have been featured by the Academy of American Poets. She lives in the Twin Cities.