MCC Visiting Writers Series
MCC Visiting Writers Series!
With the help of our Creative Writing Program faculty, we host a Visiting Writers Series where published writers can share and read their work on the Bedford and Lowell campuses during the fall and spring semesters.
Each event is co-sponsored by the Creative Writing Program and the Office of Student Engagement.
The writers and poets who share their work come from different backgrounds and concentrations. Before reading, they share their stories relating to the craft and what led them to create the piece. Oftentimes, the readers talk about the creative process, publishing their work, and staying motivated. Anyone in attendance is free to ask questions once the reading finishes.
Genres include:
- Fiction
- Nonfiction
- Poetry
Fall 2025 Events
MCC Visiting Writers Series presents: Jennifer Jean
2 p.m. on October 1, 2025
Lowell Campus – Academic Arts Center
A faculty member at the Solstice MFA, Jean is a senior program manager at the Fine Arts Work Center and an organizer for the Her Story Is collective. She has received honors from the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, the Mass Cultural Council, and the Women’s Federation for World Peace. Jean’s latest book of poetry and translation is “Where Do You Live?” co-written and co-translated poems that are a correspondence in Arabic and English with Iraqi poet Dr. Hanaa Ahmad Jabr. The the editor of the forthcoming anthology “Other Paths for Shahrazad: a Bilingual Anthology of Poetry by Arab Women” (Tupelo Press, 2026), her resource book “Object Lesson: a Guide to Writing Poetry” was published by Lily Books in 2021.
MCC Visiting Writers Series presents: Frederick Reiken
12:30 p.m. on November 19, 2025
Lowell Campus – Café East
Frederick Reiken is the author of three novels, most recently Day For Night, which was published to wide acclaim with Reagan Arthur Books of Little, Brown & Co., as well as Little Brown U.K. in Great Britain and Australia. Translations have been published in Dutch (De Harmonie), French (Grasset), Spanish (Alianza Editorial), and Hebrew (Keter). Day for Night was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in fiction and was cited as one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post. Formerly a news reporter, columnist, and nature writer, he teaches creative writing at Emerson College. He lives in western Massachusetts with his wife and children.
Previous Events
12:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 3
Bedford Campus – Cafe East
Maureen Stanton is the award-winning author of "The Murmur of Everything Moving: A Memoir" (Columbus State U. Press, 2025), "Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood" (Mariner Books, 2019), and "Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: An Insider’s Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting" (Penguin Books, 2011). Her nonfiction has been widely published, and she has been awarded fellowships and grants.
12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, November 19
Bedford Campus – Cafe East, Campus Center
Krysten Hill is the author of “How Her Spirit Got Out” which received the 2017 Jean Pedrick Chapbook Prize. She has featured work, on stage, at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival, Boston Book Festival, Blacksmith House, Cantab Lounge, Haley House, and U35 Reading Series. Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day Series, Poetry Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, Up the Staircase Quarterly, Winter Tangerine Review, and Rust + Moth.
2 p.m. on Wednesday, October 9
Lowell Campus – Academic Arts Center, Recital Hall
Pablo Medina is the author of many published books, including poetry, fiction, memoir, and works in translation, most recently the poetry collection Sea of Broken Mirrors (Hanging Loose Press, 2024) and the novel The Cuban Comedy (Unnamed Press, 2019).
10 a.m. on Wednesday, October 2
Bedford Campus – Campus Center, Cafeteria
Author, social justice activist, and MCC professor emerita Jean Trounstine discusses her new short story collection “Motherlove” (Concord Free Press), a powerful short story collection about 10 mothers of children who kill. Trounstine will share how fact becomes fiction in the aftermath of the teens’ murders and how she created the book with her 30+ years of experience with prisoners and their families.
Contact Us!
Office of Student Engagement
StudentEngagement@middlesex.edu
1-800-818-3434