About this Event
Vanderbilt Reading Series: Ayana Mathis, Fiction
Ayana Mathis is on the faculty of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Hunter College, CUNY. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she became the first African American woman to become an assistant professor in that program. Her most recent novel, The Unsettled (Knopf, 2023), was named a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book of 2023 and a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, Publisher’s Weekly, and Kirkus. Her first novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie (Knopf, 2012), was a 2013 New York Times Notable Book, NPR Best Book of 2013, and second selection for Oprah’s Book Club 2.0. Mathis’s nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Guernica, and the Financial Times, among others, and she has received support from the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, and the Bogliasco Foundation.
Location: Special Collections Library and University Archives
1101 19th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37212
6:30 - Literary Salon, First Floor Lounge
7:00 - Reading, Second Floor Lecture Hall
8:00 - Book Signing
This event is free and open to the public. Parking is available on the street and in paid lots in the area.
The Gertrude C. and Harold S. Vanderbilt Reading Series is named in honor of Vanderbilt founder Cornelius Vanderbilt’s great-grandson and his wife. Each semester, the series brings several professional writers to campus to read from their works and visit classes. This unique and extraordinary program gives English department students and faculty, the Vanderbilt community, and Nashville’s citizens a chance to meet and talk with some of the best writers of our day.
For more information about the Vanderbilt Reading Series and to sign up for our e-mail announcement list, please visit our website. Additionally, make sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook for more updates on events and news!
Event venue & nearby stays
Special Collections and University Archives, 1101 19th Avenue South, Nashville, United States
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