Craft Lecture on "What is Voice?: Notes on Sounding Like Yourself"

This event will be VIRTUAL ONLY. Login here (no pre-registration needed): https://tinyurl.com/ZellWriters

Zell Visiting Writers Series readings and Q&As are free and open to the public. Please contact kotziers@umich.edu with any questions or accommodation needs.


You’ve immersed in flow, process, forms, revision, workshop—you know what you want to say, but how do you sound? Do you have a “signature” or a tone? A ‘tude? A range? How can a piece of writing “sound like” its author? This craft talk is meant to inspire, and challenge those writers working on their first manuscripts.

Brenda Shaughnessy is the author of five poetry collections, most recently The Octopus Museum (Knopf 2019), which was a New York Times 2019 Notable Book. 2012’s Our Andromeda was a finalist for the Griffin International Prize, the PEN/Open Book Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Prize. She received a 2018 Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a 2013 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her second book, Human Dark with Sugar, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2008. Her poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, The Nation, The New Yorker, Paris Review, and elsewhere. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Rutgers University-Newark and lives with her family in Verona, NJ. She is currently working on new poems for a sixth collection, as well as the poetry/libretto for the opera Sensorium Ex, a work in collaboration with composer Paola Prestini, commissioned by Atlanta Opera and Beth Morrison Projects for 2023-24 Atlanta and NYC premieres.


For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email kotziers@umich.edu-- we are eager to help ensure that this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. A lactation room (Angell Hall #5209), reflection room (Haven Hall #1506), and gender-inclusive restroom (Angell Hall 5th floor) are available on site. ASL interpreters and CART services at in-person events are available upon request; please email kotziers@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event, whenever possible, to allow time to arrange services.

U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor). There is limited metered street parking on State Street and South University Avenue. The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor) is five blocks away, and the parking rate is $1.20 per hour. All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.