Summer Literary Programs
inspiring Authors, Shaping Minds
Our summer Offerings
Spend Your Summer with Us
The Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of St. Thomas hosts its annual Summer Literary Programs, featuring three major events for writers, inspiring authors, students, and those who want to encounter the beauty of the written word and participate in the lively life of the mind and imagination.
The Summer Literary Series – June 8-16, 2026, brings leading authors from around the world to the UST campus to deliver readings and lectures. Hear from some of the greatest writers of our day, including novelists, poets, scholars and literary critics. These events are free and open to the public.
The Summer Writers Institute – June 11-13, 2026, is a three-day intensive program, inviting people from all walks of life to contemplate the Church’s teaching on the nature of beauty, the craft and practice of the literary arts, and to grow as writers themselves through individual attention and editorial counsel. Applications are now open.
The MFA Summer Residency – June 8-17, 2026, is a special in-person course for our MFA students and alumni, with an intensive series of seminars, workshops, and literary events. Learn more about these exciting literary events below, including the guests for our annual Summer Literary Series and more.
Unlike any other
Summer Literary Series
Join us next June for the Summer Literary Series at the University of St. Thomas! This annual celebration of the literary arts brings distinguished authors and scholars from around the world as they share the joy and beauty of the written word.
The public is invited to join this multi-night event on-campus for a series of readings, lectures, and performances that feature the best in contemporary literature and reflections on enduring classics.
Evenings with...
Summer Literary Series Speakers
June 8–17, 2026
Speaker Bios
Check Out Our Speaker Lineup Below
Christopher Beha
Christopher Beha is the author of five books, among them the novels What Happened to Sophie Wilder and The Index of Self-Destructive Acts, as well as the memoir Why I Am Not an Atheist: The Confessions of a Skeptical Believer. His new novel, Oppo: An Entertainment, will be published next year.
Ron Hansen
Ron Hansen was born and raised in Omaha and is a 1970 graduate of Creighton University. He is the author of nine novels, two collections of stories, a children’s book, two collections of essays, and several screenplays. Mariette in Ecstasy was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and won the Gold Medal in Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. His novel Atticus was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. His novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck. His most recent novel is The Kid and in 2020 his essays were collected in Hotly in Pursuit of the Real. Before his recent retirement, he taught film and creative writing at Santa Clara University as the Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ Professor in the Arts and Humanities. In 2007 Ron was ordained a permanent deacon for the Diocese of San Jose. He and his wife, novelist Bo Caldwell, now reside in North Bethesda, Maryland where he is a Senior Deacon in the Archdiocese of Washington.
Kevin Hart
Kevin Hart is the Jo Rae Wright Distinguished University Professor at Duke University where he teaches in the School of Divinity and the Department of English. His most recent collections of poetry are Carnets (Cascade) and Firefly(Pitt St. Poetry), and a new “selected poems,” 101 Poems is forthcoming. Volumes of prose include Dark-Land: Memoir of a Secret Childhood (Paul Dry Books), Contemplation: The Movements of the Soul(Columbia UP) and his Gifford Lectures, Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation(Chicago UP).
Alfred Nicol
Alfred Nicol’s collection of poems, After the Carnival, was published this spring by Wiseblood Books. Nicol, who worked in the printing industry for over twenty years after graduating from Dartmouth College, published his first book of poems in 2004, Winter Light, which was chosen for the Richard Wilbur Award. His other publications include Animal Psalms, Elegy for Everyone and Brief Accident of Light, a collaboration with Rhina Espaillat. With Espaillat and classical/flamenco guitarist John Tavano, he is part of the music-and-poetry ensemble, The Diminished Prophets. Nicol’s translation of the lyrics for “Sing the Triumph of the Lord” were used for the official anthem of International Eucharistic Congress convened in 2021 by Pope Francis in Budapest. His translation of One Hundred Visions of War by Julien Vocance, has been called “an essential addition to the history of modernist poetry.”
Sally Read
Sally Read is the award-winning editor of Word on Fire’s “100 Great Catholic Poems”, and author of four of her own poetry collections. Her most recent, and the first since her conversion from atheism to Catholicism, “Dawn of this Hunger” was fruit of her time as poet in residence at the Hermitage of the Three Holy Hierarchs. Sally’s poetry has been recorded for the UK’s Poetry Archive, and her writing, in both poetry and prose, has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies including, The Times Literary Supplement, The Picador Book of Love Poems, and Forward’s Poems of the Decade. Her poetry has also featured on BBC Radio, and episodes of her Radio Maria England show, “Poetry for the Season”, are available on Spotify. Sally is also the author of two memoirs, Night’s Bright Darkness, and The Mary Pages, and the meditation to her daughter, Annunciation, a Call to Faith in a Broken World. Her first children’s book, Bell and the Joyful Mysteries, is published by Word on Fire in 2026, and her poetry guide, The Secrets to Reading Poetry: Unlocking the Language of God, will follow later in the year.
More about Sally, and her online poetry school, can be found at www.sallyread.net
Karen Ullo
Karen Ullo is the author of three award-winning novels, Jennifer the Damned, Cinder Allia, and To Crown with Liberty. She’s the editorial director of Chrism Press, an imprint of WhiteFire Publishing devoted to fiction from Catholic and Orthodox Christian points of view, as well as a former managing editor of the Catholic literary journal Dappled Things. She holds a MFA in screenwriting from the University of Southern California and a Bachelor of Music in vocal performance from LSU. She lives in Louisiana with her husband and two sons. You can find her on the web at karenullo.com.
Go Deeper
Summer Writers Institute
Every summer, the MFA in Creative Writing program at the University of St. Thomas hosts the Summer Writers Institute: a three-day immersive program in the Catholic literary tradition. This event is open to the public. Participants must be 18+, submit an application, and be accepted into the program.
During this time, participants will meet at UST and hear from distinguished writers of poetry and fiction, and engage in seminars on art and beauty, Catholicism and literature, and the craft of writing. They will also get counsel and help with their own work in lively creative writing workshops.
This year’s SWI fiction faculty will be Brigid Pasulka; the poetry faculty will be James Matthew Wilson.
Between the evening public readings with masters of the art, the intense seminars and workshops, and the good company at meals, participants will experience that most elusive thing: a literary community intended to deepen and strengthen their own work while also welcoming them into the great literary and cultural tradition of the Church.
Aside from a $100 deposit (which can be used toward on-campus housing costs during the SWI) all costs for tuition, meals, and receptions during the Summer Writers Institute are covered by the University of St. Thomas. Participants are responsible for housing (affordable on-campus options available) and travel to campus.
Immerse yourself in your art
MFA Summer Residency
The MFA Summer Residency is a special in-person event within the life of the UST online MFA program. For ten days, MFA students travel to Houston for an intensive series of seminars, workshops, and literary events (including those of the Literary Series). Engaged in convivial discussion from dawn until well past dusk, the students deepen their understanding of literary form, grow in mind and spirit, and prepare a new “climate of opinion” to shape American literary culture far beyond the UST classroom. The program is preparing a new generation to transform our culture, to raise it up and strengthen it, in the way of beauty.
Programs for young Authors
Catholic Literary Arts Summer Camp
Catholic Literary Arts (CLA) is known for its specialized writing programs. Each June, CLA offers an intensive, one-week day camp in Houston, Texas for children in 3rd-12th grade. This camp specializes in teaching practical creative writing skills in the areas of fiction, poetry, sacred story, and creative nonfiction though a Christ-centered lens. We help children and teenagers strengthen their faith while also refining actual writing skills. Our program’s use of writing and revision strategies leads students to realize that expressing their thoughts and ideas on the written page brings newfound freedom and joy.
CLA’s camp is split into two components. Both camps offer lessons in four genres (poetry, fiction, sacred story, and creative nonfiction) from professional faculty trained in our unique methodology.
- Fearless Catholic Writing Camp (FCWC) – works with children in grades 3-8.
- High School Writers Institute (HSWI), which focuses on high school students.