Writer's Voice

Funded by contributions from alumni and friends, the Department of English, and the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, Writer’s Voice introduces contemporary writers to citizens of the North Valley. All readings are free and open to the public.

Follow Writer's Voice on Facebook for more information about upcoming events.

Spring 2025 Series

Sarah Pape, Poetry

Thursday, February 27 | 7:30 pm | ARTS 150

Sarah Pape teaches creative writing and works as the Managing Editor of Watershed Review and Flume Press at Chico State. She is the Co-Director of the Northern California Writing Project. Her poetry and prose have been published in The New York Times, New England Review, Passages North, Ecotone, Hayden’s Ferry Review, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection, Forgive the Animal, was published by Cornerstone Press (2024). Poet Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones, describes her poems as, "bring[ing] together the 'wild net' of memory and the 'knit stitch' of craft to show what it means to go from wreckage to illumination, despair to sweetness. This beautiful book is ultimately about the idea of home--the home of the body, the home of family, the home of a place--and how home must be incessantly fought-for, earned, and saved." 

Rob Davidson, Fiction

Thursday, March 13 | 7:30 pm | ARTS 150

Rob Davidson is the author of six books, including Welcome Back to the World: A Novella and Stories (Cornerstone Press, 2024). Davidson’s fiction, essays and interviews have appeared in Zyzzyva, Hayden’s Ferry Review, Indiana Review, New Delta Review, South Dakota Review, and elsewhere. His honors include a Fulbright award, multiple Pushcart Prize nominations, and an AWP Intro Journals Project Award in fiction. Twice appointed Artist in Residence at the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, Rob has led workshops at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival, the Anderson Island Writing Retreat, the Redding Writers Forum, and other events. He teaches creative writing and American literature at California State University, Chico.  

Annie Wenstrup, Poetry

Tuesday, March 25 | 7:30 pm | ARTS 150

Annie Wenstrup (Dena’ina) is the author of The Museum of Unnatural Histories, forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press in March 2025. Annie is the recipient of the 10th annual New England Review Emerging Writer’s Award, and is the 2024 Stephen Donadio Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference Scholar. In 2023, she received the Alaska Literary Award and support from The Rasmusson Foundation. Annie’s held a Museum Sovereignty Fellowship with the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center (Alaska office) supported through a Journey to What Matters grant from The CIRI Foundation, and was an Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow in 2022 and 2023. Her poems have been published in Alaska Quarterly Review, Ecotone, Poetry, and elsewhere. She lives in Fairbanks, Alaska with her family.

Free & open to the public. Masks are welcome.

Past Events

List of Previous Speakers

Spring 2023

• Yesika Salgado - Poetry
• Henry Hughes - Poetry
• Caroline Kim - Fiction

Fall 2022

• Author Jean Hegland & Graphic Novel Artist Loming
• Anna B. Moore - Fiction
• Alondra Adame - Poetry & Creative Nonfiction
• Rae Gouirand - Poetry
• Sarah Pape - Creative Nonfiction
• Graduate Student Reading - Poetry & Fiction

Spring 2022

• Nicole Stellon O'Donnell - Poetry

Fall 2021

• Tom Lin - Fiction

Spring 2021

• Lia Purpura

Fall 2020

• Fred Arroyo

Fall 2019

• Juan Alvarado Valdivia
• Peg Alford Pursell
• Nancy Au
• Ingrid Keriotis

Spring 2019

• Jamel Brinkley - Fiction
• Mai Der Vang - Fiction, Creative Nonfiction & Poetry
• Rob Davidson - Fiction
• Jose Antonio Rodriguez - Poetry & Creative Nonfiction

Fall 2018

• Michelle Tea - Poetry
• Lynn Freed - Nonfiction

Spring 2018

• Sasha Pimentel - Poetry
• Beth Spencer - Poetry
• Ryan Van Meter - Nonfiction
• Luke Davies - Poetry/Fiction

Fall 2017

• Graduate Student Reading - Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction
• Naomi Williams - Fiction
• Mary Troy - Fiction
• Rob Davidson - Fiction

Spring 2017

• Neal Snidow - Fiction

Fall 2016

• Graduate Student Reading - Poetry, Fiction, and Creative Nonfiction
• Martha Collins - Poetry

Spring 2016

• Louis B. Jones - Fiction
• Sean Hill - Poetry

Fall 2015

• Christian Kiefer - Fiction
• George Keithley - Fiction

Spring 2015

• Carole Simmons Oles - Poetry 
• Chris Cokinos - Creative Nonfiction
• Dimitri Keriotis - Fiction
• Gary Thompson - Poetry and Fiction
• Matthew Frank - Creative Nonfiction
• Steve Gutierrez - Poetry and Fiction

Fall 2014

• Joan Frank - Fiction & Nonfiction
• Wendy C. Ortiz - Memoir
• Doug Rice - Fiction & Nonfiction

Spring 2014

• Joanne Harris Allred - Poetry
• Dr. Daryl Farmer - Nonfiction
• Brian Turner - Poetry & Memoir

Fall 2013

• Brenda Hillman - Poetry
• Jon Raymond - Fiction
• Peggy Shumaker - Poetry

Spring 2013

• Martha Collins - Poetry
• Henry Hughes - Poetry
• Patricia Ann McNair - Fiction

Fall 2012

• Fred Arroyo - Fiction
• Nick Flynn - Poetry & Memoir
• Rae Gouirand - Poetry
• Andrew Lam - Fiction
• Martin Puchner

Spring 2012

• Camille T. Dungy - Poetry
• Steven Edwards - Nonfiction
• Troy Jollimore - Poetry

Fall 2011

• Jeanne Clark - Poetry

Spring 2011

• Laleh Khadivi - Fiction
• Sally McNall - Poetry
• Carol Sklenicka - Fiction & Biography
• Rob Magnuson Smith - Fiction