Spring 2026

Upcoming Events

Thurs, January 29: Faculty @Noon with Adam Novy

Adam Novy has been teaching writing, fiction, and the liberal arts at Scripps, Pitzer, and Claremont Graduate School since 2008, and published his critically acclaimed novel, The Avian Gospels, in 2010. 

Thurs, January 29, Noon, Hampton Room, Scripps College.

Tues, February 3: Michael Patrick MacDonald: The Rest of the Story

Michael Patrick MacDonald, author, professor of practice, community builder, draws on his lived experience and his work leading The Rest of the Story, a trauma-informed, peer-led storytelling program supporting people impacted by violence, addiction, and loss. Through facilitated restorative justice circles and writing practice, participants reclaim narrative control, build solidarity, and translate lived experience into leadership, healing, and civic action. MacDonald will offer a practical and human framework for understanding how storytelling can move individuals and communities from fear to voice, from isolation to solidarity, and from trauma toward collective healing and social change.

Tues, February 3, 5:30 pm, Athenaeum, CMC. Dinner Program. RSVP Required.

Thurs, March 12: Poetry Reading with Isabel Neal

Isabel Neal is the author of Thrown Voice, which won the 2025 Yale Younger Poets Prize, selected by Rae Armantrout. She graduated from Pitzer College in 2012. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Waxwing, The Yale Review, Tupelo Quarterly, Poem-a-Day, and elsewhere. Isabel was a 2024 Lighthouse Works Fellow and has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from Haystack Open Studio, the James Merrill House, the Rackham International Institute, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Vermont Studio Center. She holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from the University of Michigan, and lives and works in southern Maine.

Thurs, March 12, 5:30 pm, Broad Center Performance Space, Pitzer College.

Wed, March 25: Ken Liu: The Future Is Implausible

Through a series of images drawn by artists from the past imagining life in the future, Ken Liu, award-winning author of speculative fiction, asks the audience to think through provocative questions about the science fictional imagination. What do sci-fi authors tend to get wrong about the future? What do they tend to get right? Is science fiction about “predicting” the future? And just why is the future so difficult to pin down?

Wed, March 25, 5:30 pm, Athenaeum, CMC. Dinner Program. RSVP Required.

Fri, April 10: Reading with Myriam Gurba

Myriam Gurba is a writer and activist. Her first book, the short story collection Dahlia Season, won the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. O, the Oprah Magazine ranked her true-crime memoir Mean as one of the “Best LGBTQ Books of All Time.” Her recent essay collection Creep: Accusations and Confessions was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award for Criticism, and won the Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Nonfiction. She has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Vox, and Paris Review. Her latest book, Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings, was published by Timber Press in October 2025.

Fri, April 10, TBD, Pitzer College

Mon, April 13: An Evening with United States Poet Laureate Arthur Sze

The 2025-26 United States Poet Laureate Arthur Sze’s poetry is recognized for its “intellectual and visceral experience” (Brooklyn Rail). The Library of Congress describes his “poetry as distinctly American in its focus on the landscapes of the Southwest, where he has lived for many years, as well as in its great formal innovation. Like Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Sze forges something new from a range of traditions and influences – and the result is a poetry that moves freely throughout time and space.” Sze will offer his reflections and read from his vast collection of works.

Mon, April 13, 5:30 pm, Athenaeum, CMC. Dinner Program. RSVP Required.

Other campus events can be found by visiting the websites for Scripps Presents, the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum at CMC, the Pomona College English Department, and the Tufts Poetry Awards at CGU.