Friday, February 19
UCR 6:30-8:00 pm PST 
Register here

Joy Harjo 

2021 LA Review of Books (LARB) – UCR Department of Creative Writing 
Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree, 
US Poet Laureate

UCR Department of Creative Writing 
Lifetime Achievement Award Ceremony

This award night is the closing event of the UCR-hosted festival.
A ticketed after-event award celebration is scheduled with LA Review of Books. Learn more

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, RIVERSIDE
Department of Creative Writing

44th Annual Writers Week Festival 2021

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Writers Week director
Writers Week is the longest-running, free literary event in California and features the most renowned authors of our day alongside those at the start of promising careers. writersweek.ucr.edu

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke 
Director, Writers Week
Distinguished Professor

Tom Lutz 
Publisher, Los Angeles Review of Books 
UCR Creative Writing Department Chair 
Distinguished Professor 

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February 13 and 16-19, 2021
ONLINE. Free and open to the public. 
Captioned & ASL translated.
February 20 Post-festival ticketed celebration with our Lifetime Achievement Award partner LA Review of Books. Learn more

Download the Interactive Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees Poster here

Download the Interactive 44th Writers Week Poster here
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Rita Dove, Joy Harjo and Juan Felipe Herrera

2021 LA Review of Books (LARB) – UCR Department of Creative Writing 
Lifetime Achievement Award Honorees, US Poet Laureates

Mike Davis – D. Charles Whitney Reader 
Karen Tei Yamashita – Stephen Minot Lecture

44th UCR Writers Week Featured Writers 
Millicent Borges Accardi • Kazim Ali • Francisco Aragón • Joseph Cassara • Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle • Camille T. Dungy • Carolyn Dunn • Steve Erickson • Kelli Jo Ford • Reyna Grande • Stephanie Elizondo Griest • Nalo Hopkinson • LeAnne Howe • John Jennings • Stephen Graham Jones • Laila Lalami • Brandy Nālani McDougall • Shin Yu Pai • Craig Santos Perez • Tommy Pico • Elizabeth Powell • Kamala Puligandla • Alison C. Rollins • Jane Smiley • Michael Torres • Melissa Valentine • Allison Benis White
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SCHEDULE 
Friday, Feb 19
Session 3 – UCR 6:30-8:00 pm PST

Joy Harjo  
2021 LA Review of Books (LARB) – UCR Department of Creative Writing 
Lifetime Achievement Award Honoree, US Poet Laureate
An American Sunrise (Norton, 2019) 
When the Light of the World was Subdued (Norton, 2020) 
Joy Harjo, Joy Harjo  
Joy Harjo, Blue Flower Arts 
Joy Harjo, Library of Congress 

Photo credit: Matika Wilbur

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BIOGRAPHIES

Joy Harjo 
Joy Harjo’s nine books of poetry include An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. Harjo’s memoir Crazy Brave won several awards, including the PEN USA Literary Award for Creative Non-Fiction and the American Book Award. She co-edited two anthologies of contemporary Native women’s writing: When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through and Reinventing the Enemy’s Language: Native Women’s Writing of North America, one of the London Observer’s Best Books of 1997. She is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation for Lifetime Achievement, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets for proven mastery in the art of poetry, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America, and the United States Artist Fellowship. In 2014 she was inducted into the Oklahoma Writers Hall of Fame. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally, solo and with her band, the Arrow Dynamics. She has five award-winning CDs of music including the award-winning album Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears and Winding Through the Milky Way, which won a Native American Music Award for Best Female Artist of the Year in 2009. Harjo’s latest is a book of poetry from Norton, An American Sunrise. In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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The 44th Writers Week 2021 is made possible by support from Ken Crocker, Inland Empire Magazine, Thea Temple / Jack and Jacob Myers Literary Fund, Riverside Latino Network, African Student Programs, Middle Eastern Student Center, UCR Department of English, UCR Department of Ethnic Studies, UCR Department of Music, UCR Department of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production, Center for Ideas and Society, California Center for Native Nations, Dr. Michael Alexander, Associate Professor and Maimonides Chair of Jewish Studies, Dr. Melissa Wilcox, Professor and Holstein Endowed Chair, Pr. Alex Espinoza, Associate Professor, Tomás Rivera Endowed Chair of Creative Writing and English, Distinguished Professor, Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, Dr. Clifford Trafzer, Distinguished Professor of History and Rupert and Jeanette Henry Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs, UCR ARTS, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Dean’s Office, our generous sponsors through #UCRGivingTues donors, Native American Student Programs Office (NASP), Joshua Gonzales, Director, the Ratcliffe Family Creative Writing Endowment Fund and Los Angeles Review of Books.

#UCRGivingTues* donors include: Mark O. Bailie, Melissa A. Bartholomew, Katherine Benouar, Kathleen DeAtley, Clyde D. Derrick III, Terri L. Dunlap, Pr. Alex Espinoza, Diana Fontaine, Katherine K. Fugate, Jeffrey J. Girod, Kimberly V. Gomez-Fraser, Pr. Allison Hedge Coke, Travis B. Hedge Coke, Dr. Laila Lalami, Malinn C. Loeung, Michael Lundell, Jennifer Merrett, Heather M. Morales, LaSharon A. McLean Perez, Cati Porter, Rachel L. Pulido, Assistant Vice Chancellor Emily M. Rankin and Eveleen D. Samayoa.

Book purchases
A hyperlink is now available for all attendees to purchase books from our own campus B & N bookstore here. Cellar Door Books is our recommended local independent store. Be sure to stop by their page.

Information: writersweek@ucr.edu 

• FB UCR Writers Week
• FB UCR Writers Resist
• IG @ucrwritersweek
• Twitter @ucrwritersweek
• Twitter #ucrwritersresist  

Click here to read UC Riverside's statement of support for Black Lives Matter and Native Land Recognitions. 

View the 44th Writers Week Events Calendar Directory here