Written Arts News
D.M. Aderibigbe’s Collection 82nd Division Featured in Multiple Publications
Since its release, it has been reviewed by Literary Hub and received a starred review in Booklist.
D.M. Aderibigbe’s Collection 82nd Division Featured in Multiple Publications
D.M. Aderibigbe and his collection 82nd Division.
Aderibigbe was also interviewed by Frontier Poetry. “In my second collection, I was wholly invested in the formal elements of each poem,” he said. “It was important to me [that] the form of each poem adds some degree of complexity to it.” He will give a reading of the collection with Ann Lauterbach on January 29 at Oblong Books in Rhinebeck.
Aderibigbe teaches in Bard’s Written Arts program, which encourages students to experiment with their writing in a context sensitive to intellectual, historical, and social realities. Students are encouraged to consider writing as an act of critical and creative engagement, a way of interrogating and translating the world.
Post Date: 01-27-2026
Professor Dinaw Mengestu Featured in Poughkeepsie Journal
Mengestu said, "When I think of the thing that I really want to uphold and protect most, it's literature."
Professor Dinaw Mengestu Featured in Poughkeepsie Journal
Dinaw Mengestu. Photo by Anne-Emmanuelle Robicquet
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of three novels, all of which were named New York Times Notable Books: All Our Names, How To Read the Air, and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. He has taught in Bard’s Written Arts Program since 2016.
The Written Arts Program at Bard encourages students to experiment with their writing in a context sensitive to intellectual, historical, and social realities. Students are encouraged to consider writing as an act of critical and creative engagement, a way of interrogating and translating the world.
Post Date: 01-21-2026
Bard Professor Dinaw Mengestu Named President of PEN America
Mengestu will assume leadership at PEN America at a time when threats to freedom of speech are on the rise globally.
Bard Professor Dinaw Mengestu Named President of PEN America
Dinaw Mengestu. Photo by Anne-Emmanuelle Robicquet
“Many groups advocate for free speech. But it’s the relationship between free expression and literature and writers that makes PEN America’s work so unique,” Mengestu said in an interview with the New York Times. “If we lose awareness of how important our culture of literary and artistic production is, our understanding of free expression goes with it.”
As PEN America’s president, Mengestu will prioritize an active literary presence on the board to ensure that free expression work is not only at the forefront, but happening in partnership with the literary community at large. He also seeks to strengthen the connection with PEN’s international chapters to advance the organization’s mission for freedom of expression worldwide.
“Dinaw Mengestu has spent his career illuminating the borders between countries, histories, and identities, and bringing readers into the lives of those too often pushed to the margins,” said Summer Lopez, PEN America’s interim co-CEO and chief of Free Expression programs. “As he steps into the role of PEN America president, his unwavering commitment to free expression, his advocacy for writers under threat around the world, and his profound belief in literature’s power to humanize across deep divides will guide the organization through this pivotal moment for democracy and the written word.”
Mengestu assumes the presidency and becomes the chair of the PEN America Board of Trustees for a two-year term, following his election by the organization’s membership at its annual general meeting on Wednesday evening. A PEN America trustee since 2016, he succeeds Jennifer Finney Boylan, the trailblazing trans author and LGBTQ+ activist whose 18 books include novels, thrillers, memoirs, and a YA adventure series.
Dinaw Mengestu is the author of four novels, Someone Like Us (Knopf 2024), All Our Names (Knopf, 2014), How To Read the Air (Riverhead, 2010), and The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Riverhead, 2007), all New York Times Notable Books. Born in Ethiopia, his articles and fiction have appeared in the New York Times, New Yorker, Harper’s, Granta, and Rolling Stone. He is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow, a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship, National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Award, Guardian First Book Award, and a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. His most recent novel, Someone Like Us, was chosen as one of President Obama’s 10 best books of the year, and his work has been translated into more than 15 languages. He holds a BA from Georgetown University and an MFA from Columbia University. He is the director of the Written Arts Program at Bard College and the founder and director of the Center for Ethics and Writing.
Post Date: 12-18-2025
Upcoming Events
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2/09Monday5:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
A Reading with DM Aderibigbe
Monday, February 9, 2026
5:30 pm EST/GMT-5
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium
On Monday, February 9, at 6pm in the László Z. Bitó ’60 Auditorium, Reem-Kayden Center, poet and Center for Ethics and Writing Fellow DM Aderibigbe will read from his work. This reading is free and open to the public.
D.M. Aderibigbe is from Lagos, Nigeria. He’s the author of 82nd Division (Akashic Books, 2025), winner of the National Poetry Series, and How the End First Showed (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018), winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry, among other honors. He has received fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, Sewanee Writers’ Conference (Walter E. Dakin Fellowship), The James Merrill House, Art Omi/Ledig House, Ucross, Jentel, and Boston University where he earned his MFA in creative writing. His poems appear in The Atlantic, The Nation, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, The Georgia Review, and New England Review, among others. He’s a Senior Fellow in Ethics & Writing in the Written Arts Program at Bard College.
Read more about DM Aderibigbe's work here.
Contact: Megan Brien
E-mail: [email protected]