Devotion and Disruption in Two Amazing Stories from The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen by Serena Sweeney (’26)

The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen was originally titled An Intimation of Things Distant. It consists of five fiction stories by Nella Larsen that were written in the 1920s during the Harlem Renaissance, which was a movement to foster Black culture and pride through literature, art, and music. The pieces in her collection discussed tensions and hardships of the Black middle class in Harlem during the 1920s: restlessness, isolation, searching for belonging, psychology, marriage, race, and the complexities of having mixed-race heritage.

The Midwest Home: A Visit from Marianne Chan by Serena Sweeney (’26)

On Thursday, March 6th, before we all went on Spring Break, the English Department was pleased to host poet Marianne Chan as part of the Poets & Writers Series. Chan read poems from her recently published collections All Heathens and Leaving Biddle City. She also shared a few poems that she is currently working on as part of her next collection.

Serena Sweeney (’26): Why I Majored in Creative Writing

In all honesty, writing was not my first love. It was not the career path that I was willing to center my future around, not immediately. However, it was always there in my life somewhere. As a child I had a great passion for art—painting, drawing, and such. I remember the fun I had making drawings for the kids in my first-grade class who would give me a quarter to draw whatever they wanted.