Hollins University

Lab Reading: "Our Family in the Stars" by Katie Oler
2024-07-24 19:00 - 20:30 (America/New_York) | Hollins Theatre
Each Wednesday evening, as part of the course Playwright’s Lab, an early draft of a student written play is presented in an orchestra style reading.

#5: Our Family in the Stars by Katie Oler

Theatre, Upstairs Studio

No Shame Theatre
2024-07-26 23:00 - 2024-07-27 00:30 | Hollins Theatre
No Shame Theatre is an experiential performance lab where writers, performers and audience are constantly changing roles. Anything can happen and usually does in this late night venue for original work. We take the first 15 pieces to walk in the door and there are only three rules: pieces must be original (no copyright violations), short (five minutes or less), and not break anything (including the law). Inside those rules you can do pretty much anything you’re interested in trying in front of a live audience–plays, monologues, songs, dance, poetry, mime, juggling, comedy, tragedy, Improvisation, dada, magic–we’ve even seen people do floral arrangements! Pieces are accepted starting at 10 pm, doors open at 10:30 pm, and the show starts at 11 pm, running on average an hour and a half.

Helen Phillips Reading and Lecture
2024-09-19 20:15 - 21:30 | Hollins Room, Wyndham Robertson Library, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
Helen Phillips is the author of six books, including the novel The Need (Simon & Schuster, 2019; Chatto & Windus, 2019), which was long-listed for the National Book Award and named a New York Times Notable Book of 2019. Her latest novel, HUM, was published in August 2024 by Simon & Schuster/Marysue Rucci Books.

Phillips’ short story collection Some Possible Solutions (Henry Holt, 2016) received the 2017 John Gardner Fiction Book Award. Her novel The Beautiful Bureaucrat (Henry Holt, 2015), a New York Times Notable Book of 2015, was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Her collection And Yet They Were Happy (Leapfrog Press, 2011) was named a notable collection by The Story Prize and was re-released in 2023. She is also the author of the children’s eco-adventure book Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (Delacorte Press, 2012).

Sponsored by the Department of English and Creative Writing and the Dee Hull Everist Visiting Speaker Fund.

Sarah Juliet Lauro Reading and Lecture
2024-10-03 19:30 - 21:00 | Hollins Room, Wyndham Robertson Library, 7916 Williamson Road, Roanoke, VA, 24020, United States
Sarah Juliet Lauro, Ph.D., is assistant professor of hemispheric literature at the University of Tampa. She has written widely on zombies in literature and film, but her new work focuses on commemorations of slave rebellion in various forms.

Lauro’s first book, The Transatlantic Zombie: Slavery, Rebellion, and Living Death (2015) showcases her expertise in both postcolonial literature of the Western hemisphere and horror film. She followed this with the publication of an edited volume, Zombie Theory: A Reader (2018), and the slim book Kill the Overseer! The Gamification of Slave Revolt (2020). Lauro enjoys collaborative scholarship and has edited collections both for book publication and for special issues of journals. She has also done some writing for magazines and online outlets, most recently for Art Papers and Monument Lab Bulletin.

Lauro received the 2015 Tyler Rigg award for the year’s best essay in the international journal Disability Studies Quarterly.

Sponsored by the Department of English and Creative Writing and the Dee Hull Everist Visiting Speaker Fund.

Nathan Osorio Reading and Lecture
2024-10-24 19:30 - 21:00
Nathan Xavier Osorio won the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for his collection Querida. Selected by poet Shara McCallum, his debut collection will be published by The University of Pittsburgh Press in September 2024.

Osorio’s chapbook, The Last Town Before the Mojave, was selected by Oliver de la Paz for the Poetry Society of America’s 2021 Chapbook Fellowship. His poetry, translations, and essays have been featured or are forthcoming in BOMB, The Offing, Boston Review, Public Books, Notre Dame Review, the New Museum of Contemporary Art, and elsewhere. He has received fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center, the Kenyon Review, and Poetry Foundation.

Osorio is currently a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of California, Irvine. He conducts critical and creative research that explores the work of contemporary Latinx poets and artists who use multimodal decolonial poetics to unsettle western forms and illuminate the complexities of life within coloniality.

Sponsored by the Department of English and Creative Writing, the Department of Modern Languages, and the Dee Hull Everist Visiting Speaker Fund.

Distinguished Speaker Series: Ailey School Student Performance Group
2024-11-20 19:00 - 20:30 | Hollins Theatre
THEATRE SEATING IS SOLD OUT! All Tickets will now be for a live video feed.
The Ailey School honors the vision of Alvin Ailey, founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, by providing the best professional dance education with a focus on multidisciplinary training.

Dancers from the Ailey School will offer a performance and a keynote address on the history of the Ailey company, their relationship with college campuses and diversity, and the importance of teaching and the arts. The dancers come from all corners of the world to train and perfect their craft in the Ailey style of dance which incorporates multiple techniques including ballet, Horton, Graham-based modern, jazz, West African, Dunham technique, and hip hop. Led by Rehearsal Director Freddie Moore, the dancers are given the opportunity to share Mr. Ailey’s vision through valuable professional performance experience. This special event is part of the Hollins Distinguished Speaker Series.
Admission is free and open to the public, but seating is limited, and tickets are required (click here to reserve your space). Once tickets in the theatre are sold out, we will offer tickets to overflow seating in another location, with a video feed from the event in the theatre.

Author Reading: Kiki Petrosino
2025-03-13 19:30 - 20:30 | Green Drawing Room, Main
Hollins University
Join us for a special reading with acclaimed poet Kiki Petrosino as part of the 2024-2025 Reading & Lecture Series hosted by the Department of English and Creative Writing.
Petrosino will present her work “Bright,” which explores the term used to describe light-skinned people of interracial American ancestry. The book offers a meditation on the author’s upbringing in a mixed Black and Italian American family, weaving together memoir, archival research, and personal reflection to examine the legacies of enslavement and racial discrimination in America.
Kiki Petrosino is the author of “White Blood: A Lyric of Virginia” (2020) and three other poetry collections. She holds graduate degrees from the University of Chicago and the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop and currently teaches at the University of Virginia as a Professor of Poetry.
A Q&A session, book signing, and reception will follow the reading.
All are welcome to attend!
