Lion Rock Visiting Writers 2025-2026
The Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series schedules readings every quarter and features nationally known writers reading their own work. We have hosted winners of the MacArthur Genius Award, WA State Poets Laureate, and recipients of Catamundo, Whiting, Guggenheim, Lannan, and NEA Fellowships, and other major prizes.
Each spring, students enrolled in ENG 568 and ENG 468: Contemporary Writers Colloquium (graduate and upper-level multi-genre writing workshops, respectively), meet with three visiting writers from the Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series. We also sponsor talks by professional editors and publishers, readings by faculty and students, including open mics, and an annual reading for students who have their work published in CWU's literary magazine, Manastash.
Past readers in the Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series include Natalie Diaz, Eduardo Corral, Elissa Washuta, Lucia Perillo, Anthony Doerr, Jos Charles, Major Jackson, Kim Barnes, Linda Bierds, David Guterson, David Wojahn, Prageeta Sharma, and many others.
The Series wishes to thank our many generous sponsors, including the College of Arts and Humanities, CWU Libraries, Museum of Culture and Environment, The Wildcat Shop, Karen Gookin, Len Thayer Grants, Humanities Washington, S&A, President's Office/Diversity and Inclusivity, the WGSS Program, The Douglas Honors College, and many partnerships across departments, schools, and the Kittitas Community, including those with Kittitas County Regional Library Board, One Book One County Program, Ellensburg Public Library, Jerrol's, and Gallery One.
Candace Walsh
Thursday, November 6th, 2025
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PST - Craft Talk: "Re-Use, Reflect, Regenerate"
CWU Brooks Library 2nd Floor Student Commons or via Zoom
Register here to join this event via Zoom
5:45 p.m. - 6:45 p.m. PST - Reading: Poetry and Prose (book signing to follow)
With an introduction by Dr. Anne Cubilié
and a reading by CWU graduate student Emily Kirpach
CWU Brooks Library 2nd Floor Student Commons
Register here to join this event via Zoom
Candace Walsh is an assistant professor of creative writing at Central Washington University. She holds a PhD in fiction from Ohio University and an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. She was the summer 2025 Alumni Fellow at Warren Wilson College’s MFA residency. Her poetry chapbook, Iridescent Pigeons, was released by Yellow Arrow Publishing in July 2024. Her poem “Wild and Frail and Beautiful” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2024. Recent publication credits include The Greensboro Review, Passengers Journal, and Leon Literary Review (fiction); Trampset, California Quarterly, Sinister Wisdom, Vagabond City Lit, and HAD (poetry); and The Ekphrastic Review (forthcoming), March Danceness, New Limestone Review, and Pigeon Pages (creative nonfiction). Her craft and pedagogical essays and book reviews have appeared in Assay: A Journal of Nonfiction Studies, Brevity, Craft Literary, descant, and Fiction Writers Review. She proposed and moderated an AWP panel on the braided essay as a social justice action with panelists Nicole Walker, Anna Chotlos, and Sarah Minor. At Ohio University, she co-edited Quarter After Eight literary journal for three years, founded and produced the QAE Reading Series, and coordinated the English department’s Visiting Writers program. Two of the essay anthologies she co-edited were Lambda Literary Award finalists: Dear John, I Love Jane, and Greetings from Janeland.
Learn more about Candace on her website.
Fall Student Reading
Wednesday, November 19th, 2025
5:30-8:15 p.m. PST
Via Zoom
This event is a fantastic opportunity to celebrate our peers' creativity and effort while enjoying their engaging stories, poems, and essays. 
Central Washington University’s Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series is proud to present their winter and spring 2026 lineup of events: four in-person author visits featuring craft talks and readings. We’ll be welcoming novelist David Haynes February 14, poet Elizabeth Bradfield April 21, creative nonfiction author Nora Wendl May 5, and novelist Sonora Jha on May 26. All events will take place in Black Hall’s beautiful new Multicultural Center. Each author will give a craft talk at noon and present a reading and book signing at 5:30 p.m. All events will be available in person and on Zoom.
David Haynes
Wednesday, February 18, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PST - Craft Talk
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
5:30 p.m. PST - Reading with book signing to follow
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
David Haynes is the author of 12 books: 5 for adults and 7 for young readers. His most recent book, Martha's Daughter: A Novella and Stories (McSweeney's)—was named a Best Book of 2025 by Publisher's Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. In 2023, Penguin Classics published the 30th anniversary edition of his first novel, Right by My Side. He has received a fellowship from the Minnesota State Arts Board, and several of his short stories have been read and recorded for the National Public Radio series “Selected Shorts.” He is also the author of a series for children called “The West Seventh Wildcats.”
David spent fifteen years as a K-12 teacher in urban schools, mostly teaching middle grades in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He worked on numerous school reform efforts, including developing the influential Saturn School of Tomorrow, where he served as Associate Teacher for Humanities. He has been involved in the work of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, coordinating efforts of the nation’s finest educators to develop standards in the fields of social studies, vocational education, early childhood education and for teachers of students whose first language is not English.
David Haynes is a member of the Board of Directors of Kimbilio, a community of writers and scholars committed to developing, empowering and sustaining fiction writers from the African diaspora and their stories. He currently serves as the Chair of their board.
David Haynes' visit is being co-sponsored by the President's office, Africana and Black Studies, and Student Engagement and Success.
Winter Student Reading
Tuesday, March 10th, 2026
5:30-6:45 p.m. PST
Via Zoom
Please register here to join this Zoom event
Elizabeth Bradfield
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PST - Craft Talk
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
5:30 p.m. PST - Reading
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
Poet/naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield’s most recent book is SOFAR: Poems, which includes work published in The Atlantic Monthly, The Sun, Poetry, and Orion. She is also author of Interpretive Work, which won the Audre Lorde Prize in Lesbian Poetry, Toward Antarctica, Once Removed, Approaching Ice, and co-creator of Cascadia Field Guide: Art, Ecology, Poetry, winner of a Pacific Northwest Book Award among other honors. A former Stegner Fellow and Editor of Broadsided, Liz works as a naturalist and directs the Poetry Concentration for the low-residency MFA at Western Colorado University.
“With wildlife, patience and time and quiet is required, a stillness so that things might evolve around you. I think the same is true of writing poems.” – Elizabeth Bradfield
Bradfield's Orion questionnaire
Nora Wendl
Tuesday, May 5, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PST - Craft Talk
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
5:30 p.m. PST - Reading
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
Nora Wendl is an essayist, artist, and associate professor of architecture at the University of New Mexico, where she teaches architecture studio and theory. Wendl creates new forms and frameworks for historicizing the built and unbuilt environments, often employing feminist archival practices, and her work has been supported by the Graham Foundation, Santa Fe Art Institute, and National Trust for Historic Preservation, among other institutions. She has exhibited and published widely, and her most recent book, Almost Nothing: Reclaiming Edith Farnsworth (University of Illinois Press, 2025)—an architectural history as memoir—was shortlisted for the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.
“Writing architectural history as a memoir changed how I've thought about time, history, and our responsibility to the future.” – Nora Wendl
Open Mic: Creative Writing Out Loud
Thursday, May 14, 2026
5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
CWU Brooks Library The Attic (4th Floor)
We welcome you to a casual open mic gathering in the library's cozy attic performance space. You're invited to read from finished work, a work in progress, or a published piece you admire—or take it all in as an audience member.
This event is co-sponsored by CWU's James E. Brooks Library and the English Department, and is facilitated by Candace Walsh and Lacy Ferrell.
Sonora Jha
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. PST - Craft Talk
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
5:30 p.m. PST - Reading
CWU Black Hall 107, Multicultural Center's Multipurpose Room or via Zoom
Please register in advance to join this event via Zoom
Sonora Jha is the author of four books, the latest of which is the novel Intemperance, longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and hailed as a Best Book of 2025 by Library Journal, the LA Public Library, Book Page, the Chicago Review of Books, and others. Her 2023 novel The Laughter won the 2024 Washington Book Award, the AutHer Award, was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, and was named one of the Best Books of 2023 by the New Yorker, NPR, and others. She is also the author of the memoir How to Raise a Feminist Son. Formerly a journalist in India and Singapore, Dr. Jha is now a Loyola Professor at Seattle University. Her novel Foreign, published in India in 2013, is forthcoming from Harper Via in the U.S. in Fall 2026.
“When I write, I feel like I have lived three times as much, three more days than were my share.” – Sonora Jha
CWU News
CWU to host annual Economic Outlook Conference on May 5
April 22, 2026 by Rune Torgersen
Student-led effort culminates in grand opening of CWU Multicultural Center
April 22, 2026 by Rune Torgersen