Award-Winning Writer Teju Cole to Talk Craft at Chatham This Month

Teju Cole will speak at Chatham University and Carnegie Mellon Universit this month. (Maggie Janik)

Writer and photographer Teju Cole will give a craft talk at Chatham University on March 30 followed by a reading at Carnegie Mellon University.

The event, co-sponsored by Chatham University’s creative writing program and Carnegie Mellon’s Department of English, begins with a 3:30 p.m. craft talk in Coolidge Hall room 134 at Chatham’s Shadyside Campus.

Afterwards, Cole will hold a reading at the Danforth Conference Room in the Carnegie Mellon University Center.

Teju Cole is a writer, photographer, and former photography critic for The New York Times. He has authored three works of fiction: Tremor, Every Day Is for the Thief, and Open City, the latter of which received the New York City Book Award for Fiction. He also wrote two celebrated essay collections, Known and Strange Things and Black Paper. In both his talks and his art, Cole explores multinational identity, finding fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people, and historical moments. He is currently a professor of creative writing at Harvard University.

“Getting Teju Cole to come to our university, with the generous co-sponsorship of Carnegie Mellon University’s English department, is quite the coup,” says Marc Nieson, associate professor of creative writing at Chatham. “He is one of our most versatile and talented young authors. An aerialist with words and ideas across genres and art disciplines. An insightful cultural thinker, critic, and maverick in the vein of say, Susan Sontag and John Berger. We're thrilled to be hosting his visit.”