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Poet and Memoirist Safiya Sinclair ’10, author of the memoir  a National Book Critics Circle Award Winner and one of the most notable books of the year according to the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, TIME Magazine, and many others, will address the 89th graduating class at the conferring of degrees on Saturday, June 1. We connected with her to learn more about her time at Bennington and how it influenced her career.

51�������� is the only college Michael Pollan ’76 applied to. Pollan’s mother had attended Bennington in the fifties, and he remembered reading through her college papers, which were kept in the attic of his childhood home, and thinking about how extraordinary it was to have been taught, as she was, by poet Howard Nemerov and literary critic Kenneth Burke.

By Louise Roug Bokkenheuser

Sunlight filters through the curtains onto the desk by the window. Books, papers, and pens suggest a creative mind at work. The writer has just stepped away, leaving their glasses on an open notebook. A gooseneck lamp conveys the long hours, the flowers in the vase a consideration for beauty.

In 2019, undergraduate and Bennington Writing Seminars alumni and faculty published over 65 books.

While students embark on Field Work Term, an annual work-learning term during which students gain hands-on experience and test their classroom ideas in the world of work, Bennington faculty and staff offer their reading recommendations to keep everyone’s intellectual juices flowing wherever they are.

Whether you’re looking for the perfect gift for a loved one or for yourself this holiday season (you deserve a ‘lil treat), we’ve rounded up a handy list of new and classic books written by the Bennington community to delight even the pickiest of readers. 

51�������� congratulates Bruna Dantas Lobato ’15 who won the National Book Award for her translation of Stênio Gardel’s The Words That Remain in a ceremony on the evening of Wednesday, November 15.

Mark Wunderlich, Director of Bennington Writing Seminars, faculty member Craig Morgan Teicher, and past faculty Paul Yoon, Ephraim Asili, Kaitlyn Greenidge, and Alexander Chee are recipients of the prestigious 2021 Guggenheim Fellowships.

Ariél M. Martinez, an MFA student in nonfiction, has been selected to be the seventh Residential Teaching Fellow at the .

As Bennington begins the second half of the Fall 2020 term, we reflect on the ways our community has adapted to learning and living on campus and beyond this fall—and the experiences, successes, and moments of joy along the way.

51�������� is pleased to announce the following promotions and staffing at the Bennington Writing Seminars.

Louise Bokkenheuser, an MFA student in fiction, has been selected to be the eighth Residential Teaching Fellow at the .

Mary Ruefle: Erasures, the first solo exhibition of visual work by Vermont State Poet Laureate Mary Ruefle ’74, is currently on view at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum.

Nico Amador MFA '22, a second-term MFA student in poetry, has been selected to be the fifth Residential Teaching Fellow at the Bennington Writing Seminars.

, finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry, will be the Commencement speaker for the Bennington Writing Seminars in January 2020.

Puloma Ghosh, a rising fourth-term MFA candidate in fiction, has been selected as the fourth Residential Teaching Fellow at the, working in the classroom for a full term beginning in Spring 2020

Mark Wunderlich published a new poem in the American Academy of Poets  called "The Son I'll Never Have." It also appears in the . 

While students embark on Field Work Term, an annual work-learning term during which students gain hands-on experience and test their classroom ideas in the world of work, Bennington faculty offer their reading recommendations to keep everyone’s intellectual juices flowing wherever they are.

Mark Wunderlich, the, took some time to answer questions about his long-term goals for the program, its literary legacy, and what he’s reading.

51�������� announced today that poet Mark Wunderlich has been named the next director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, the College’s MFA program in writing.

A survey of the Bennington curriculum by Briee Della Rocca

Literature faculty member Mark Wunderlich, whose recent poetry collection, The Earth Avails, won the 2015 Rilke Prize, is  in the current issue of The American Literary Journal. His poem "The Corn Baby" was  in the May 15 New York Times Magazine.

Two Bennington students have been invited to Bucknell University this summer, and two others to Skidmore College, for highly selective, nationally sought-after creative writing fellowships.

Faculty member Mark Wunderlich  the 2015 University of North Texas’ Rilke Prize for his latest collection, The Earth Avails. The $10,000 prize recognizes a book that “demonstrates exceptional artistry and vision.” Mark was also a finalist for the $100,000 . His recent poem, "My Night with Jeffrey Dahmer,"recounts in chilling detail his encounter with infamous serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer at a bar in Madison, Wisconsin.