Shahrnush Parsipur, author of the novel, Women Without Men, died at the age of 80 on 3 July 2026. Born in Iran, Parsipur gained recognition for her fiction but in doing so attracted the scrutiny of the Iranian authorities, leading to four brutal periods of incarceration both during the shah's reign and post-revolution Iran. Parsipur lived in exile in the U.S. from 1994 on and was Brown's 2003-2004 International Writers Project fellow; during her time in residence at Brown, the Literary Arts department brought to campus the artist Shirin Neshat, with whom Parsipur would collaborate on a film adaptation of Parsipur's famous novel.

Alison C. Rollins, who graduated from Brown's MFA program in 2023, has been selected as 2026 recipient of the Whiting Award in Poetry. Congratulations, Alison!

Based on her course through which she engages Brown students with writers in the local community schools, Eleni Sikelianos, professor of Literary Arts in Poetry, has been recognized as a recipient of Brown University's Howard Swearer Engaged Faculty Award.

Chloe Malle, who earned her AB in Literary Arts in May 2008, has been named by Vogue as the new head of the U.S. edition.

Andres Cordoba. a recent recipient of Brown's MFA, was one of five poets selected by the Poetry Foundation as a 2025 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow.

Poet and editor Thomas Sayers Ellis, MFA '95, died on 17 July 2025. Thomas was a highly-regarded poet and an enthusiastic builder of literary communities, such as the Dark Room Collective in Cambridge, Mass.

Congratulations are in order for Colin Channer, who has been awarded a 2025 fellowship by the Academy of American Poets. Colin Channer is state laureate of Rhode Island and Associate Professor of Literary Arts.

Bhion Achimba, MFA '22 has been awarded a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University. Achimba had previoiusly been named the 2023 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow.

Kwame Dawes and Lorna Dawes know there is a wealth of poetry from African authors out there. Thousands of poems, they say, sit in universities and libraries across the world, waiting to be catalogued, translated, digitized and promoted.

The pair of Brown University researchers is committed to sharing this wealth of poetry with the world, and they’ll work to do so with support from a $2 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Professor Kwame Dawes has been elected as member of the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences in spring 2025. Professor Dawes joined the Literary Arts department at Brown in January of this year.

Kwame Dawes, Professor of Literary Arts at Brown and newly-named Poet Laureate of Jamaica, talks about poetry with Artscape reporter, Luis Hernandez.

Robert Coover, TB Stowell Adjunct Professor, is remembered for is writing, his teaching and his advocacy on behalf of new forms of literature in print and digital frameworks.

Jennifer Levin and John Eisendrath have designed their spring 2026 Advanced Screenwriting workshop to reflect the dynamics of a writers' room. And the workshop members have good things to report.

Kwame Dawes, professor of Literary Arts, has been recognized for his literary contributions by being named as Poet Laureate of Jamaica.

Francesca Mari, assistant professor of the practice, has written a thoughtful and empathic account of responding to a family member's dementia.

We extend our condolences to the family and friends of Shay Youngblood, who earned an MFA from Brown in playwriting in 1993.

The department of Literary Arts extends heartfelt condolences to the McCormack family as we mark the death of alumnus Thomas McCormack, who was regarded as a ground-breaking editor at St. Martin's Press. Owing to his generosity, the department hosts most of our on-campus events in the McCormack Family Theater

Governor Dan McKee named Colin Channer as Rhode Island’s 7th Poet Laureate. Colin Channer is associate professor or Literary Arts at Brown University and author, most recently, of Console, a book of poems.

“Colin Channer is an accomplished writer whose talent and work have touched the lives of so many people,” said Governor McKee. “I’m excited to see him continue his craft here in the Ocean State where he will not just be a leader in poetry but serve as a poetry and literary inspiration to Rhode Islanders across our state.”

The announcement was made on Friday, 1 March 2024.

Stine An, alumna of the MFA program at Brown has been awarded a fellowship for translation by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Michael Antonucci ’88 has recently published Understanding Michael S. Harper, an invaluable exploration of Professor Harper's life and poetry. Professor Harper, who died in 2016, served as mentor for generations of Brown students and taught for the Literary Arts department for 43 years.

“Open again a turn of light,” written by Brown faculty members Eric Nathan and Sawako Nakayasu, will premiere on Saturday, Oct. 21, part of the inaugural public performance at The Lindemann Performing Arts Center.