Stonington Literary Festival
Speakers & Performers
The James Merrill Centennial Stonington Literary Festival will feature an extraordinary group of writers, scholars, critics, musicians, and former Merrill Fellows: Pamela Alexander, Hilton Als, Matthew Aucoin, Gigi Bradford, Antoinette Brim-Bell, Jennifer Clarvoe, Henri Cole, Michael Collier, Mary-Alice Daniel, Peter Dimock, Timothy Donnelly, Mark Doty, Ansel Elkins, Rachel Hadas, Lanny Hammer, Jeffrey Harrison, Walt Hunter, Kamran Javadizadeh, Jessie Kindig, Natan Last, David Leeming, Sibby Lynch, Ange Mlinko, Isabel Neal, Nicholas Phan, Jonathan Post, Adrienne Raphel, Mary Jo Salter, Rob Schlegel, David Schulz, Chris Spaide, Willard Spiegelman, Noah Warren, Rosanna Warren, Christie Max Williams, Robert Wood Lynn, Mark Wunderlich, Yanyi, Stephen Yenser, David Yezzi, and Lee Zimmerman.
Please find their biographies below:
*Indicates a former Merrill Fellow
**Indicates a former Annual Merrill Lecturer
***Indicates a former Merrill Fellow who has also been an Annual Merrill Lecturer
(YYP) =Yale Series of Younger Poet
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
Pamela Alexander’s (YYP)
LEFT won the 2024 Beloit Poetry Journal’s chapbook competition. Earlier books won the Yale and Iowa poetry prizes. She taught for many years at Oberlin College and M.I.T. and was a Bunting, Fine Arts Work Center and MacDowell fellow. Alexander’s first poetry collection, Navigable Waterways, was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets by James Merrill.
READING FROM A DIFFERENT PERSON and JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
Hilton Als
Hilton Als is a Pulitzer Prize–winning critic, journalist, author, and curator. A staff writer at The New Yorker since 1994, he is widely recognized as one of America's leading cultural critics. His books include The Women, White Girls, winner of the Lambda Literary Award, and My Pinup. In 2024, he edited God Made My Face: A Collective Portrait of James Baldwin to mark the centenary of Baldwin's birth. Als teaches at the University of California, Berkeley.
MERRILL SONGS CONCERT
Matthew Aucoin
Matthew Aucoin is an American composer, conductor, and writer, and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow. Co-founder of the American Modern Opera Company (AMOC), his operas — including Eurydice, Crossing, and Second Nature — have been produced at the Metropolitan Opera, LA Opera, and beyond. He is currently Visiting Professor of Composition and Conducting at Boston University.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER INTRODUCTION
Gigi Bradford
Gigi Bradford has directed the National Endowment for the Arts Literature Program, The Academy of American Poets, and the Folger Shakespeare Library Poetry Series, among other literary positions. She is the Founding Chair of the Folger Poetry Council and has known Henri Cole since 1981.
THE APARTMENT AESTHETIC
Antoinette Brim-Bell
Antoinette Brim-Bell, Connecticut's 8th State Poet Laureate (2022–2025), is the author of three poetry collections: These Women You Gave Me, Icarus in Love, and Psalm of the Sunflower. A Pushcart Prize nominee and Cave Canem Fellow, her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine and Poem-a-Day. She is a Professor of English at CT State Community College, Capital.
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
Jennifer Clarvoe
*Jennifer Clarvoe’s third book of poems, PIANO PIANO, was published in 2026 from Unbound Edition Press. She is a recipient of the Poets Out Loud Prize, the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, and the Rome Prize in Literature, and a residency at the James Merrill House. She taught poetry at Kenyon College for almost 30 years. instagram: @jenniferclarvoe
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
*Henri Cole
*Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan to a French mother and an American father. He has published a dozen collections of poetry and received many awards, including the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Rome Prize, the Berlin Prize, the Lenore Marshall Award, and the Medal in Poetry from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His books have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian and Arabic. He has also published Orphic Paris, a memoir. (Photo by Star Black)
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH JAMES MERRILL
*Michael Collier
*Michael Collier is Director Emeritus of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conferences. His most recent book is The Missing Mountain: New and Selected Poems (2021).
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
Mary-Alice Daniel (YYP)
Mary-Alice Daniel (YYP) was born near the Niger/Nigeria border, then raised in England and Tennessee. Her memoir, A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing (Ecco/HarperCollins 2022), was People’s Book of the Week and one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Nonfiction Books of the Year. She held the Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps College and now teaches African mythology at Princeton University. maryalicedaniel.com instagram.com/drmaryalicedaniel
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
Peter Dimock
Peter Dimock is the author of three novels (A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family (1998), George Anderson: Notes for a Love Song in Imperial Time (2012), and Daybook from Sheep Meadow: The Notebooks of Tallis Martinson (2021). He studied American history in graduate school and worked as a book editor for Random House (Knopf and Vintage) and Columbia University Press between 1983 and 2009.
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OBJECTS & POEMS
*Timothy Donnelly
*Timothy Donnelly Timothy Donnelly’s most recent book, Chariot, was published in 2023 by Wave Books. His previous books include The Problem of the Many, winner of the inaugural Big Other Poetry Prize, and The Cloud Corporation, winner of the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with his family.
QUEER LIFE IN THE 20TH CENTURY
Mark Doty
Mark Doty's Fire to Fire: New & Selected Poems received the National
Book Award in 2008. His most recent book, What the Grass Says: Walt
Whitman in My Life, a hybrid of memoir and criticism, appeared from W.W.
Norton in 2022.
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
*Ansel Elkins
*Ansel Elkins’ (YYP) Blue Yodel won the 2014 Yale Younger Poets Prize. Her poems have appeared in The American Scholar, The Atlantic, The Believer, The New York Review of Books, Ploughshares, and The Puerto Rican Literature Project. She is the recipient of the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, the 2025 Poetry Society of America Cecil Hemley Award, Poetry International’s 2026 Cavafy Prize, and the 2026 Center for Books Arts chapbook contest.
MERRILL’S POETRY OF PLACE and JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
**Rachel Hadas
**Rachel Hadas is the author of many books of poetry and essays, as well as a co-editor of “The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present.”
She taught for many years at Rutgers University (Newark) and currently serves as Original English Verse Editor of Classical Outlook and Book Review Editor of The Fortnightly Review. With her husband Shalom Gorewitz, video artist and film maker, she has collaborated on videos. www.rachelhadas.net
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
***Langdon Hammer
***Langdon Hammer is Niel Gray Jr. Professor of English at Yale and the author of James Merrill: Life and Art. He is writing a biography of Elizabeth Bishop.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH JAMES MERRILL
*Jeffrey Harrison’s first book of poetry, The Singing Underneath, was selected by James Merrill for the National Poetry Series in 1987. His seventh, Sightings, is forthcoming in 2027. A former recipient of NEA and Guggenheim Fellowships, he was a Merrill House Fellow this past spring.jeffreyharrisonpoet.com
THE APARTMENT AESTHETIC
*Walt Hunter
*Walt Hunter is professor of English and senior associate dean for faculty academic affairs at Case Western Reserve University. He is poetry and fiction editor at The Atlantic and the editor of The Singing Word: 168 Years of Poetry from The Atlantic.
POETIC AFTERLIVES
*Kamran Javadizadeh
*Kamran Javadizadeh is an associate professor of English at Villanova University. His essays and articles appear in such places as The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Yale Review, and PMLA. He is also the host of Close Readings, a podcast about poems.
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
Jessie Kindig is senior editor for the humanities at Yale University Press, and is the editor for the Yale Series of Younger Poets.
Instagram: @voleprochaine
(photo by S. Tricker)
WORDPLAY & CROSSWORDS
Natan Last
Natan Last is a researcher, policy advisor, writer, and crossword constructor in New York City. His essays, poems, and puzzles appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Nation, and The Atlantic. He is the author of Across the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of the Crossword Puzzle.
INTRODUCTION FOR HILTON ALS
David Leeming
David Leeming, a graduate of Princeton University and New York University, taught in Istanbul and at the University of Connecticut and served as James Baldwin’s assistant from 1963–1967. He is the author of numerous books and articles on mythology, James Baldwin, and Beauford Delaney, including James Baldwin: A Biography (1994) and Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney (1998; 2025 edition with an introduction by Hilton Als).
MERRILL IN STONINGTON
Sylvia (Sibby) Lynch
Sylvia (Sibby) Lynch, as president of the Stonington Village Improvement Association (SVIA), accepted Merrill’s unstipulated bequeathal of 107 Water Street to the SVIA. It was her idea to start a writers’ residence in Merrill’s apartment, which has indeed, improved the village as well as great many lives! Sibby is also a longtime member of the board of the James Merrill House.
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
*Robert Wood Lynn (YYP)
*Robert Wood Lynn (YYP) is a poet from Virginia. His debut collection Mothman Apologia was the winner of the 2021 Yale Younger Poets Prize and the 2023 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. His work has been featured in American Poetry Review, The Atlantic, The Nation, Poetry Magazine and elsewhere. He splits his time between Rockbridge County, Virginia and New York City, where he teaches poetry at Juilliard. Instagram: robertwoodlynn
GHOSTS, OUIJA & THE OCCULT
*Paul Merrill
*Paul Merrill is an author, artist, actor and lives in New Hampshire and Boston. He is James Merril’s nephew and was one of the first writers in residence at the Merrill House in Stonington.
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POETIC AFTERLIVES and JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
*** Ange Mlinko
*** Ange Mlinko is the author of Foxglovewise, her seventh book of poetry, and a book of lyric criticism, Difficult Ornaments: Florida and the Poets. She teaches poetry at the University of Florida, where she directs the MFA Program.
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
*Isabel Neal (YYP) is the author of Thrown Voice, selected by Rae Armantrout for the 2025 Yale Younger Poets Prize. She lives in Southern Maine.
Instagram handle: sendtoisabel (Photo by Rachel Darke)
MERRILL SONGS CONCERT
*Nicholas Phan
Nicholas Phan is a Grammy Award-winning lyric tenor, curator, and educator internationally acclaimed for his expressive artistry and wide-ranging repertoire. He is the co-founder and artistic director of Art Song Chicago to promote art song and vocal chamber music (photo by Clubsoda Productions).
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
Jonathan Post
Jonathan Post taught literature at Yale and UCLA for 42 years. He enjoys writing on poetry from Shakespeare to the present and is the author, most recently, of A Very Short Introduction to Elizabeth Bishop (Oxford, 2022). He and his wife, Susan, divide their time between Arizona and Stonington. She likes to paint in both places.
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WORDPLAY & CROSSWORDS
*Adrienne Raphel is the author of Thinking Inside the Box: Adventures with Crosswords and the Puzzling People Who Can't Live Without Them (Penguin Press), named an Editor's Choice by the New York Times Book Review; and Our Dark Academia (Rescue Press) and What Was It For What Was It For (Rescue Press), winner of the Rescue Press Black Box Poetry Prize. She is an English professor at CUNY Baruch College and also teaches with the low-residency MFA program at Southern New Hampshire University and the MFA at St. Joseph's University.
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
**Mary Jo Salter is the author of ten volumes of poetry, including Cameo Appearance (2026). She is professor emerita in The Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University. (photo by Simon Cowart).
TEXTures Co-Curator
*Joanna Scott is the author of twelve works of fiction, and recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, Lannan Literary Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Her novel, The Manikin, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her new collection, Excuse Me While I Disappear, is forthcoming from Little, Brown. She was in residence at the James Merrill House in the spring of 2019 and is currently a member of the James Merrill House board.
READING OF WATER STREET
*Rob Schlegel
*Rob Schlegel lives in Washington state where he teaches writing at Whitman College. His fifth book, Inventory, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in 2027.
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TEXTures Exhibit and Anthology Co-Curator
David Schulz has worked as an art director and graphic designer for clients such as the Department of Energy (PNNL), the Michael Chekhov Association, the Walla Walla Foundry, and a host of consumer magazines such as UsWeekly and ArtForum. He has also produced photography- and text-based artworks that are collected by institutions such as the Brooklyn Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Beinecke Library at Yale University. He has also taught photography and graphic design at Pratt Institute and Whitman College. He is a member of the board of the James Merrill House. (Photo by Bergin O'Malley)
WORDPLAY & CROSSWORDS
*Christopher Spaide
*Christopher Spaide is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern Mississippi. His poems, essays, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Nation, and elsewhere. He has held fellowships from the Harvard Society of Fellows, the Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry and received prizes from Post45 and The Sewanee Review. He serves as literary executor for Helen Vendler.
MERRILL IN STONINGTON
Willard Spiegelman is a retired English professor from SMU in Dallas, a scholar of twentieth century American poetry, a longtime contributor to The Wall Street Journal and a resident of Stonington. He is also a member of the board of the James Merrill House.
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
*Noah Warren (YYP)
*Noah Warren (YYP) is the author of The Complete Stories and The Destroyer in the Glass, which won the Yale Series of Younger Poets. He is an assistant professor at the University of Vermont, and his poems appear in The Paris Review, The Nation, The Atlantic, Poetry, and elsewhere.
POETIC AFTERLIVES
**Rosanna Warren
**Rosanna Warrenis a Professor (Emerita) at the University of Chicago. She is the author of seven books of poetry: the new Hindsight, and most recently So Forth (2020) and Ghost in a Red Hat (2011) and Max Jacob, Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters (2020). A former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a Berlin Fellow, she has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Lila Wallace Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New England Poetry Club, among others. (Photo by Claire Holt).
MERRILL FELLOWS READINGS
Christie Max Williams is a poet and actor. His poetry collection, The Wages of Love, won the William Meredith Poetry Prize and North Street Book Prize. He is the inaugural Poet Laureate of Stonington. He co-founded and for many years directed The Arts Café Mystic, now in its 34th year. He has worked as a leading actor on stages in California, New York, and Connecticut. He also worked as a fruit vendor in Paris, a salmon fisherman in Alaska, a consultant on Wall Street, a writer for the National Audubon Society, a wine grape harvester in Chateauneuf du Pape, and for non-profit organizations in whose causes he believes.
QUEER LIFE IN THE 20TH CENTURY
*Mark Wunderlich
*Mark Wunderlich is the author of five books of poems, the most recent of which is MATEY, forthcoming from Graywolf Press. He is also the author of two artists books. In October, a series of poems inspired by the photographs of Peter Hujar and set to music by composer Matthew Ricketts will premiere at the Morgan Library performance series. He is Executive Director of the Bennington Writing Seminars graduate writing program, and lives in New York's Hudson Valley.
MarkWunderlich.com Substack: https://markwunderlich.substack.com/
CELEBRATING THE YALE SERIES OF YOUNGER POETS PANEL
*Yanyi (YYP)
*Yanyi (YYP) is the author of two poetry collections, Dream of the Divided Field (One World/Random House) and The Year of Blue Water (Yale). He teaches poetry at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers and runs the Asian American Literary Archive.
@yanyi.docx (Instagram)
@yanyiii.com (bluesky)
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
Stephen Yenser has published three volumes of poems and three books of criticism, including The Consuming Myth:
The Work of James Merrill. He has received the Walt Whitman Award in Poetry from the Academy of American Poets
and two Fulbright Fellowships, and he is Literary Executor for James Merrill.
MERRILL’S POETRY OF PLACE
*David Yezzi
*David Yezzi’s recent books are Late Romance: Anthony Hecht—A Poet's Life and More Things in Heaven: New and Selected Poems. He has performed in productions of King Lear and Hamlet, and teaches in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins.
JAMES MERRILL AND HIS WORLD PANEL
Lee Zimmerman
Lee Zimmerman is Professor of English at Hofstra University and Editor of Twentieth-Century Literature. He is the author of Trauma and the Discourse of Climate Change: Literature, Psychoanalysis, and Denial.