novel

Steve Orlen reads poems appearing in The Bridge of Sighs (1992) as well as passages from the draft of a novel entitled Homesick For the Land of Pictures.

John Williams reads from three novels: Butcher's Crossing (1978), Stoner (1965), and Augustus (1972).

Gina Hildreth reads short vignettes from an unpublished novel set in a fictional version of Albuquerque. 

Jonathan Penner reads from Going Blind (1977) as well as work published in periodicals.

Elizabeth Evans reads excerpts from her third novel, Rowing in Eden.

Timothy Schaffert reads from The Coffins of Little Hope, published in 2011, and The Swan Gondola, which would be published in 2014.

A celebration of the fairy tale, featuring readings from authors included in My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (2010), an anthology of new fairy tales edited by Kate Bernheimer.

In this reading, originally given with Beth Alvarado, Aurelie Sheehan shares excerpts from the novel History Lessons for Girls (2006), as well as a work in progress called One Hundred Histories.

Francine Prose reads from her novel A Changed Man (2005).

Jason Brown reads from an untitled novel in progress.

Lawrence Clark Powell reads from his novel The Blue Train (1977).

Nina Marie Martinez reads from ¡Caramba!: a Tale Told in Turns of the Card (2004).

Australian poets Vincent Buckley, Les Murray, and David Malouf visit Tucson to read their work, also providing background and commentary. Les Murray reads a selection of poems in chronological order, including his oldest poem "The Burning Crook." Vincent Buckley reads from Golden Builders (1976), Late Winter Child (1979), and The Pattern (1979), as well as some unpublished poems. David Malouf reads both poetry and passages from his novel An Imaginary Life (1978).

John Barth reads excerpts from his novel Sabbatical: a Romance, a year before the novel's release. Copyright (c) John Barth, used with permission of the Wylie Agency LLC.

Linda Hogan reads early drafts of poems that would later be collected in Rounding the Human Corners (2008), along with poems from The Book of Medicines (1993) and excerpts from her novel Solar Storms (1995). The reading concludes with questions from the audience.

Just after joining the University of Arizona faculty, Elizabeth Evans reads the first chapter of an unpublished manuscript titled Ancient History, parts of which went on to be included in her novel Rowing in Eden (2000).

Elizabeth Evans reads from the first and fifth chapter of The Blue Hour (1995). She opens her performance by reading a poem by W. B. Yeats, "Adam's Curse."

Tim O'Brien reads a chapter from his novel The Nuclear Age, which would be published three years after this reading.

N. Scott Momaday reads both poetry and fiction for the Writers at Work series. He begins with a series of short epitaphs, followed by a series of charms inspired by the Native American oral tradition. He reads a few more poems, including selections from his collection The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969). He concludes the reading with a selection from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel House Made of Dawn (1968).

Richard Marius reads an excerpt from an early draft of his novel After the War (1992).

Frank Waters reads from his novel The Man Who Killed the Deer (1942) and his memoir Pumpkin Seed Point (1973).

Homero Aridjis reads from his novel El señor de los últimos días: Visiones del año mil (The Lord of the Last Days: Visions of the Year 1000), first published in 1994 and translated into English in 1996. The reading is entirely in Spanish.

Peter Matthiessen reads from his works of nonfiction The Snow Leopard (1978) and Indian Country (1984), along with a hallucination scene from his novel At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1965).

N. Scott Momaday reads from his novel The Ancient Child (1989), then under the working title Set, the Kiowa word for 'bear.'

John A. Williams reads poems from an early manuscript that would eventually come to form his collection Safari West (1998). He then reads from his novel !Click Song (1982), investigating issues of race, colonialism, and diaspora. Both books are winners of the American Book Award.

Monique Wittig and Sande Zeig read for the Writers At Work Series. Wittig and Zeig team to play the parts of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in a play written by Wittig and translated by Zeig, Le Voyage sans fin (The Constant Journey, 1985), based on Miguel de Cervantes's classic novel. Before performing the play, Wittig gives a brief talk explaining the role of transposition and gender roles in her adaption of Cervantes's work.

Jim Simmerman reads from a manuscript that would become his collection Kingdom Come (1999), a series of persona poems written in the voices of various Biblical characters. Jewell Parker Rhodes reads from her first novel, Voodoo Dreams: A Novel of Marie Laveau (1993), inspired by the life of the famed 19th century Voodoo Queen. She reads two scenes from the novel, the first set just before Marie Laveau's tenth birthday, and the second during the performance of one of Laveau's greatest miracles.

Diane Glancy reads a range of works on the theme of story, including a number of poems that would subsequently appear in The West Pole (1997) and (Ado)ration (1999). She also reads excerpts from Pushing the Bear: A Novel of the Trail of Tears (1996) and closes the reading with a brief extract from Firesticks (1993). 

Mary Elsie Robertson reads a chapter from her novel What I Have to Tell You (1989). This University of Arizona Creative Writing faculty reading was originally given with Vivian Gornick.

Leonard Michaels reads from short stories written throughout his career, and concludes the reading with an excerpt from his novel The Men's Club (1981). His uncompromising realist sketches catch characters at their darkest and most vulnerable moments, and are colored with absurdist humor. Stories include those published in his collections Going Places (1969) and I Would Have Saved Them If I Could (1975). 

In this performance for the Writers at Work Series, Katherine Toy Miller and Vance Bourjaily read from their fiction. Katherine Toy Miller reads six short stories from a collection titled Eleanor, along with a short story titled "The Critical Session." Vance Bourjaily reads segments from a novel-in-progress called The Great Fake Book. Bourjaily ends his reading by performing a short solo on the cornet.

Benjamin Rybeck reads from his novel The Sadness (2016). This reading was originally given with Lawrence Lenhart and Natasha Stagg.

Natasha Stagg reads from her novel Surveys (2016). This reading was originally given with Lawrence Lenhart and Benjamin Rybeck. 

Jenny Offill reads from Dept. of Speculation (2014) as well as from a novel in progress, American Weather. This reading was originally given with Lydia Millet.

Luis Alberto Urrea reads poems from The Tijuana Book of the Dead (2015) focused on life in the US-Mexico borderlands. He opens with one poem forthcoming in Piedra (2023) and concludes with a chapter from The House of Broken Angels (2019), retold from memory. This reading was presented as part of the 2021 Tucson Humanities Festival.

Joy Williams reads from the final section of her fifth novel, Harrow (2021), sharing a stream-of-consciousness passage from the perspective of Jeffrey, a precocious, ten-year-old judge presiding in a post-apocalyptic future. This reading was presented as part of the Distinguished Visitors in Creative Writing Series.