The opportunity to hear from and talk with important contemporary writers has been a vital part of an OBU education for many years. Beginning in 2010, the English Department Reading Series brought writers to campus, focusing on writers living in the area. The Visiting Writer Seminars then began as a way to make the reading series more ambitious and to widen its appeal by seeking to elevate the experience for students and the campus community.

The University’s first visiting writer, Tania Runyan, came to campus in March 2016. She read from her poems, lectured on writing poetry and consulted with students about their writing. Scott Cairns joined the University for the 2017 Visiting Writer Seminar, giving a poetry reading and teaching a masterclass on writing memoir.

Upcoming Seminars

Gina Ochsner, September 18-19

• Public reading: Sept 18, 7 p.m. – Tulsa Royalties Auditorium in Bailey Business Center. The reading will be streamed live on OBU's Creative Writing Facebook page.
• Fiction-writing master class, Sept. 19, 7 p.m., Stavros Hall 214

Attendees do not need to register or RSVP. All are welcome.

About Gina Ochsner:

Gina Ochsner is the author of two collections of short stories, “People I Wanted to Be” and “The Necessary Grace to Fall,” both of which won the Oregon Book Award, and a novel, “The Russian Dreambook of Color and Flight,” which received the Grub Street Book Prize in 2011 and was long listed for the Orange Prize in 2010.

Her work has appeared in “The New Yorker,” “Tin House,” “Glimmertrain,” the “Kenyon Review” and “The Best American Non-required Reading.” She is a recipient of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, a National Endowment of Arts grant, a John L. Simon Guggenheim grant and the Raymond Carver Prize. Her latest novel, “The Hidden Letters of Velta B.,” was released in 2016, with the paperback edition releasing in July 2017.

Ochsner lives in Salem, Oregon, with her husband, three children and two canine children. She serves as Corban University's Writer in Residence, and also directs the Between 2 Worlds Young Adult Creative Writing Conference. She also serves on the faculty in the Master of Fine Arts - Creative Writing program at Seattle Pacific University.

Interested in supporting the Visiting Writer Seminars?

Money is being raised through the Advancement office to bring excellent writers to OBU's campus. Through the gift of generous donors, a matching gift up to $5,000 per year has been pledged through 2019.