Columbia Writers Series
Welcome to the 2025-2026 Season
All events are free, open to the public, and take place on Clark College's Main Campus
at 1933 Fort Vancouver Way.
We look forward to seeing you at the next event.
Danez Smith
Thursday, November 13, 2025
11:00 a.m. to 12 (noon)
Gaiser Hall (GHL) 213
Danez Smith is the author of four poetry collections, including Don’t Call Us Dead, Homie, and Bluff, and curator of Blues In Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes. Their honors include the Forward Prize, Minnesota Book Award, Lambda Literary Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. A finalist for the National Book Award, Smith teaches at Randolph College’s MFA program and the Black Youth Healing Arts Center in St. Paul.
Joe Sacco
Thursday, February 5, 2026
11:00 a.m. to 12 (noon)
Penguin Union Building (PUB) 258 B-C
Joe Sacco is the Eisner Award-winning author of Footnotes in Gaza, for which he received the Ridenhour Book Prize, as well as Paying the Land, Palestine, Journalism, Safe Area Goražde, and other books. His comics reporting has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Guardian, and Harper’s Magazine. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Emma Pattee
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Penguin Union Building (PUB) 258 B-C
Emma Pattee is a climate journalist and fiction writer. She has written about climate change for The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and other publications. Her debut novel, Tilt, is a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice, a USA Today Bestseller, a Best Book of 2025 for Vogue, and an NPR favorite fiction read of 2025.
Camille Dungy
Thursday, May 14, 2026
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Penguin Union Building (PUB) 258 B-C
Camille Dungy is the author of Soil: The Story of a Black Mother’s Garden, winner of the 2024 Award of Excellence in Garden and Nature Writing and finalist for the PEN/Jean Stein Award. She has also published award-winning poetry, edited Black Nature, and her work appears widely, including in The 1619 Project and The New Yorker. Dungy is a Guggenheim Fellow and University Distinguished Professor at Colorado State University.
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About the Columbia Writers Series
The Columbia Writers Series has been a part of Clark College since 1988, bringing local, national, and international authors to the college throughout the year. Past and present directors have included Clark English professors Gerard Smith, Jim Finley, Alexis Nelson, and Dawn Knopf.
Past Speakers | English Department
"The Columbia Writers Series is designed to bring writers–whether they are fiction
or nonfiction writers, poets, playwrights, or screenwriters–to the college," said
Finley. "We not only bring diverse voices to campus, but we recognize the work of
Clark's own faculty authors as well."
"Having a strong writers' series enriches the life of any college," said Finley. "Part
of the mission of any college is to provide a culture where literature and the arts
have a place in our lives–and to recognize that it's not just ornamentation, but that
people make their living doing this work."
Writers who have visited Clark College through the series include Ursula Le Guin,
Donald Justice, Sherman Alexie, Marvin Bell, William Stafford, Jamaica Kincaid, Gerald
Stern, Carolyn Forchè, Natalie Diaz, Karen Russell, Jess Walter, Dana Spiotta, Mitchell
Jackson, and many others.