dept. of english

Written by Debra Nystrom, Professor, Creative Writing Program, Department of English, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences A little cool, you think, then the iron-scent takes you in, you leave your feet and let it—   early summer chill easing its ripple across your chest as if this water never held a body […]

Written by Jeb Livingood, Assistant Professor of English; Associate Director of the UVA Creative Writing Program, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences   I served as a reservist in the Coast Guard for twenty-four years, and I’ve been teaching English at UVA for eighteen. Those are two different worlds—the military and academia—and I […]

Written by Lisa Russ Spaar, Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Creative Writing Program, Dept. of English, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Epiphany Madrigal for Sydney Hall Blair   What’s a gift if not the heart’s envoi, a cut, a wrap, a species of we’re done here, it’s over, concluded, […]

Written by Lisa Russ Spaar, Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Creative Writing Program, Dept. of English, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences   New Year’s Eve   I’m a sucker for a gothic ending: for example, this opal brooch of sky, like milk tinged with blood behind a leaden fret […]

Written by Lisa Russ Spaar, Horace W. Goldsmith Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Creative Writing Program, Dept. of English, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences Advent Madrigal   Is waiting . . . a narrative? Can it be a way to live? This usher moon, globular flashlight, sketches the narrow aisle of night, […]

Written by Stephen Cushman, Robert C. Taylor Professor of English, College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences   No Historical Marker (Pocosin Mission, Shenandoah National Park) Good Lord, Lord, just what pit have we slipped into? they could have whimpered, cringing in that cabin, little more than lean-to, the Towles sisters, Florence and Marion, […]

The following letter was written by Deborah McDowell, Alice Griffin Professor of English in the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and Director of the Carter G. Woodson Center, in response to the alt-right demonstration events that transpired in Charlottesville this past weekend. It was originally posted on the website of the Carter […]