Dr. Carl Calendar Visiting Writers Series

Fall 2022 Dr. Carl Calendar Visiting Writers Series

All readings are free and open to the public. No reservations are needed.

Topaz Winters

Award-Winning Poet, Performer, Activist and Princeton University Student

Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 7:00 p.m.

In-Person at the Student Life Center (SLC), Twin Lights

Topaz Winters is the Singaporean-American author of three poetry collections, most recently So, Stranger. She is the founder & editor-in-chief of the independent publishing house & literary journal Half Mystic. Her peer-reviewed scholarly work on queerness is published in the Journal of Homosexuality.

About So, Stranger: “Topaz Winters centers identity and belonging throughout So, Stranger. Splitting her time between Brooklyn and Singapore, Winters offers a layered and thoughtful critique of the immigrant experience in America, the nuances of her relationship with her father and how borders operate in our lives… Ultimately, So, Stranger demonstrates the award-winning prowess Winters has for writing that is at once notably accessible and emotionally fraught. This is a collection that will appeal to new and seasoned poetry readers alike.”

Omer Friedlander

Fiction Writer 

Monday, November 14, 2022, 7:00 p.m.

In-Person, Student Life Center (SLC), Twin Lights

Omer Friedlander was born in Jerusalem and grew up in Tel-Aviv. He is the author of the short story collection The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land and his novel, The Glass Golem, is forthcoming from Random House.

About The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land: “A brilliant young author’s stunning fiction debut: gorgeously immersive and imaginative stories” (Random House). “The Man Who Sold Air in the Holy Land [is] set in a world in which fairy tales are turned upside-down, and characters both Israeli and Palestinian reach across divides to find both fragile intimacy and comic connections” (Publisher’s Marketplace Deal Report).

Cynthia Manick and James Hoch

Award-Winning Poets 

Wednesday, December 7, 7:00 p.m.

In-Person, Student Life Center, (SLC), Twin Lights

Cynthia Manick is the author of No Sweet Without Brine (Amistad-HarperCollins, 2023), editor of The Future of Black: Afrofuturism, Black Comics, and Superhero Poetry, and author of Blue Hallelujahs. Her work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other outlets.

A life-long NJ resident, James Hoch has been a professor of creative writing at Ramapo College since 2006. He’s the author of 3 award-winning poetry collections, most recently, Last Pawn Shop in New Jersey.

For more information on the Dr. Carl Calendar Visiting Writers Series, please contact Professor Suzanne Parker, Director of the Creative Writing Program, at sparker@brookdalecc.edu.

This event is Co-Sponsored by the Office of Diversity & Inclusion.