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Join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) from Sunday, January 4, through Wednesday, January 7, 2026, as the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFACW) program presents the January Evening Reading Series. Visiting writers, acclaimed for their work in fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and screenwriting, will read and perform alongside several of our full-time mentors. Each evening will engage audiences with poetry, memoir, or fiction from some of today’s most vibrant and vital voices.We are pleased to invite the public to attend the January Evening Reading Series events, held in the CLE Commons Room 201 on the IAIA campus at 83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe, NM 87508.
All readings are open to the public and free of charge, and will be held in person and virtually via livestream on the IAIA website and Facebook. See links below to watch the livestreams.
We hope to see you there! For questions, please contact IAIA MFACW Program Coordinator Veronica Bustamante at [email protected].
Evening Reading Series Events
Sunday, January 4 at 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Joseph V. Lee (Aquinnah Wampanoag), Sherwin Bitsui (Diné), and Chip Livingston (Mixed-blood Creek)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
Monday, January 5 at 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Kim Blaeser (White Earth Nation), Pam Houston, and Layli Long Soldier (Oglala Lakota Nation)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
Tuesday, January 6 at 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Arthur Sze, current Poet Laureate of the United States (Second generation Chinese American) and Simon Ortiz (Acoma Pueblo)—Performing Arts and Fitness Center, IAIA Campus
Wednesday, January 7 at 6:00 pm (MST): Readings by Shane Hawk (Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of OK), Bojan Louis (Diné), and Kelli Jo Ford (Cherokee Nation)—CLE Commons, IAIA Campus
Biographies
Arthur Sze is a poet, translator, and editor, and in 2025 he was named the 25th Poet Laureate of the United States. He is the author of twelve books of poetry, including Into the Hush (2025) and The White Orchard: Selected Interviews, Essays, and Poems (2025); The Glass Constellation: New and Collected Poems (2021); Sight Lines (2019), for which he won the National Book Award; Compass Rose (2014); The Ginkgo Light (2009); Quipu (2005); The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970–1998 (1998); and Archipelago (1995). He also authored Transient Worlds: On Translating Poetry (forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press, 2026), The Silk Dragon II: Translations of Chinese Poetry (2024), and edited Chinese Writers on Writing (2010). His poetry has been translated into fifteen languages, including Chinese, Dutch, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Sze received the 2025 Bollingen Prize for lifetime achievement in American poetry, the 2024 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, 2024 National Book Foundation Science + Literature award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, a Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among others. He is a chancellor emeritus of the Academy of American Poets and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Sze was the 2023–2024 Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University. He is Professor Emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Sze was the first poet laureate of Santa Fe, where he lives with his wife, the poet Carol Moldaw.
Simon J. Ortiz, a poet, prose writer, editor, and children’s book author, was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on May 27, 1941. He attended Fort Lewis College and the University of New Mexico for undergraduate studies. He received his MFA as an International Writing Fellow at the University of Iowa in 1969. Ortiz’s books of poetry include: Light as Light (The University of Arizona Press, 2023); Out There Somewhere (The University of Arizona Press, 2002); Telling and Showing Her: The Earth, The Land (Just Buffalo Literary Center, 1995); Woven Stone (The University of Arizona Press, 1992); From Sand Creek: Rising In This Heart Which Is Our America (The University of Arizona Press, 1981), for which he received a Pushcart Prize; A Good Journey (Turtle Island Foundation and Netzahaulcoyotl Historical Society, 1977); Going for the Rain (Harper & Row, 1976); and Naked in the Wind (Quetzal/Vihio Press, 1971). Ortiz has also published children’s books, memoirs, nonfiction, and short stories, and served as the editor of various books and anthologies. Most recently, these publications include Men on the Moon: Collected Short Stories (The University of Arizona Press, 2022); Speaking for the Generations: Native Writers on Writing (The University of Arizona Press, 2022); and The Good Rainbow Road (The University of Arizona Press, 2010), illustrated by Michael Lacapa. Ortiz is a recipient of the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, the New Mexico Humanities Council Humanitarian Award, the National Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and was an Honored Poet at the 1981 White House Salute to Poetry. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Returning the Gift Festival of Native Writers. Ortiz lives in Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico, where he was Lieutenant Governor and a consulting editor of the Pueblo of Acoma Press. He has taught writing and Native American literature at various institutions, including the University of Toronto, from which he retired.
MFA in Creative Writing
The Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is designed as a two-year program with two intensive week-long residencies per year (summer and winter) at IAIA. Students and faculty mentors gather for a week of workshops, lectures, and readings. At the end of the residency week, each student is matched with a faculty mentor, who then works one-on-one with the student for the semester. IAIA’s program is unique in that we emphasize the importance of Indigenous writers speaking to the Indigenous experience. The literature we read carries a distinct Native American and First Nations emphasis. The MAFCW offers four areas of emphasis: poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and screenwriting.
The deadline to apply for the 2026 academic year is February 1 at 5:00 pm (MST).
https://iaia.edu/event/2026-mfacw-january-evening-reading-series-sze-ortiz/
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), 47 A van NU Po, Santa Fe, NM 87508, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups - all the happenings, one place.
