With the news that esteemed journalist and author M. Gessen has won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize in Opinion Writing, we are fondly reminded of our 2017 Ocean State Summer Writing Conference, at which they taught a master class and gave a fantastic Keynote Address.

Students are encouraged to submit to our annual department writing contests. Prizes in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and critical essay are now open for submissions. Prizes are broken up into undergraduate and graduate divisions. Please read full details HERE and share widely!

NEA and McDowell fellow Ally Ang will be on campus for a poetry reading and discussion at 2:00pm on Tuesday, January 27th in Swan Hall’s Hoffmann Room. Ally is the author of the 2025 collection Let the Moon Wobble. You can find out more about them by visiting their website.

Professor Mok’s interview appears alongside those of other renowned theater critics. According to her: “The value of criticism is directly connected to the audience because theater, going to the theater, experiencing theater, is a kind of provisional act of community.” You can see the entire interview by following this link.

The department would like to congratulate Dr. Nancy Caronia on her appointment at Loyola University Chicago as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of English. She will hold the Paul and Ann Rubino Endowed Professorship of Italian American Studies. Nancy earned her PhD in English and Cultural Studies from URI in 2015. See Loyola’s […]