About the Speaker

Maggie Nelson is the author of several acclaimed books of poetry and prose, many of which have become cult classics defying categorization. Her nonfiction titles include the new essay collection Like Love: Essays and Conversations (2024), the national bestseller On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (2021), the National Book Critics Circle Award winner and New York Times bestseller The Argonauts (2015), The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (2011; a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Bluets (2009; named by Bookforum as one of the top 10 best books of the past 20 years), The Red Parts (2007, reissue 2016), and Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (2007). Her poetry titles include Something Bright, Then Holes (2007) and Jane: A Murder (2005; Finalist, the PEN/ Martha Albrand Art of the Memoir). In addition to a 2016 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, she has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction, a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, an Innovative Literature Fellowship from Creative Capital, and an Arts Writers Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and has taught literature, writing, art, criticism and theory at the New School, Pratt Institute, Wesleyan University, CalArts, and the University of Southern California, where she is currently a Professor of English.


This event is sponsored by the Department of English. Photo courtesy of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

About the Chet Raymo Literary Series

The Chet Raymo Literary Series was established in 2001. The annual event brings significant writers of poetry, fiction or non-fiction to Stonehill to share their work and to speak about the art of writing. Past speakers include National Book Critics Circle Award winners Claudia Rankine and Layli Long Soldier, NYT best-selling author Ocean Vuong, and Pulitzer Prize winners Susan-Lori Parks and Jennifer Egan.