A.K. Smith Reading Series

The Trinity College English Department welcomes acclaimed authors and poets to share their work with our community through the A.K. Smith Reading Series. These events celebrate the art of creative writing, offering students and faculty the chance to hear new voices, engage with established writers, and experience literature as a living, evolving practice.

Spring 2026 A.K. Smith Reading Series Schedule

Readings are open to all! Food and beverages will be served.

Madeleine Thien

Wednesday, March 25th @ 4:30pm, Reese Room, Smith House

Madeleine Thien was born in Vancouver and lives in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of five books, including Do Not Say We Have Nothing, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and the Folio Prize, and won the 2016 Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction. Her most recent novel, The Book of Records was named a book of the year by Time, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and The New York Public Library, included on President Obama’s list of favourite books of 2025, and longlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and The Climate Fiction Prize 2026. Madeleine’s novels have been translated into twenty-seven languages, and her essays and stories can be found in The New Yorker, Granta, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Review of Books, and elsewhere. Since 2018, she has been teaching in the MFA Program at Brooklyn College at The City University of New York.

 

Dawn Lundy Martin

Thursday, April 7th @ 6:30pm, Reese Room, Smith House

 

Emily Raboteau

Tuesday, April 21st @ 4:30pm, Reese Room, Smith House

Emily Raboteau writes at the intersection of social and environmental justice, race, climate change, and public art. Her latest book, Lessons for Survival, was a finalist for the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, and the ASLE Book Award. A contributing editor at Orion Magazine and a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, her work on the climate crisis has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, New York Magazine, and Best American Science and Nature Writing. She is a full professor in the Black Studies Department at the City College of New York and lives in the Bronx.

 

 

 

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Linked below are the profiles of the poets and novelists we’ve invited to campus for literary readings and Q&A sessions.