Writers Speak Is Back (With an Open House)

It’s that time again. The air is crisp, the leaves are turning, the kids are back in school. And readings have returned in earnest to the college.

To Stony Brook Southampton, that is, where the fall iteration of the Writers Speak series of free author appearances starts up on Wednesday at 7 p.m. with Kim Addonizio, who is out with two new books, “Mortal Trash: Poems” and “Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions From a Writing Life.” 

This one is different, in part because preceding it at 5:30 will be an open house for prospective students in the M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature, which sponsors Writers Speak. Julie Sheehan, the program’s director, and other faculty members will discuss workshops in fiction, creative nonfiction and memoir, poetry, and playwriting. Emma Walton Hamilton will go over the children’s literature fellows program. A reception for Ms. Addonizio starts at 6:30.

Coming down the pike for Writers Speak are Dani Shapiro, the author of “Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life,” on Oct. 19, John Knight, an editor at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, in conversation with Emily Gilbert, a creative writing instructor at the Stony Brook campus, on Nov. 2, Lia Purpura, a poet, on Nov. 16, and Ruth Franklin, a book critic, together with the college’s Susan Scarf Merrell on Nov. 30. Students enrolled in the M.F.A. program will read from their work on Dec. 7. 

The readings, which involve book signings and periods for questions and answers, happen in the Radio Lounge, upstairs in Chancellors Hall.