Description

The VCU Visiting Writers Series hosts an evening of creative nonfiction with a joint-reading by Chloe Caldwell and Jessica Nelson.

Chloe Caldwell is the author of four books: the essay collection I’ll Tell You in Person, the critically acclaimed novella, WOMEN, Legs Get Led Astray, and The Red Zone: A Love Story. Orphaned Passages: Notes on Trying is forthcoming from Graywolf Press in 2025. Chloe’s essays have appeared in The New York Times, Bon Appétit, New York Magazine’s The Cut, The Strategist, Buzzfeed, Longreads, Vice, Nylon, Salon, The Rumpus, Hobart, The Sun, and half a dozen anthologies including Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving NYC and Without A Net: The Female Experience of Growing Up Working Class. She lives in Hudson, NY. For more information please visit her website.

Jessica Hendry Nelson's latest book, Joy Rides Through the Tunnel of Grief (UGA 2023) is the winner of the AWP Sue William Silverman Prize in Creative Nonfiction. She is also the author of If Only You People Could Follow Directions (Counterpoint 2014)—named a best debut book by the Indies Introduce New Voices program, the Indies Next List by the American Booksellers' Association, and a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Review. She co-wrote Creative Nonfiction: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury 2021) with author Sean Prentiss. Other publication venues include Prairie Schooner, Tin House, The Threepenny Review, North American Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. She teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University and in the MFA Program at the University of Nebraska in Omaha.

Sponsor(s): The VCU Visiting Writers Series is presented on behalf of VCU's MFA in creative writing program in partnership with the James Branch Cabell Library Associates and VCU Libraries. Additional sponsors are the VCU Department of English, and the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.

The event is free and open to the public and will be live-streamed through zoom in addition to its in person location. 

For special accommodations, or to register offline, please contact Ryan Pander, event manager, rbpander@vcu.edu or 804-828-0593.