The past month has been a virtual wellspring of literary inspiration at Hopkins, with visits by acclaimed authors who shared their work and wisdom with the community: Poet/Playwright, Claudia Rankine, Poet and Non-Fiction Writer, Dwayne Betts, and Novelist Yaa Gyasi.

New Haven poet Claudia Rankine kicked things off on April 29, with readings from her books, Citizen and Just Us, followed by a Q&A moderated by Hopkins Alumna, Stacy Graham-Hunt ’00. The author of five collections of poetry and two plays, Rankine is Yale University’s Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

On May 6, Hopkins’ Writer-in-Residence, Reginald Dwayne Betts, a poet, non-fiction writer, legal scholar, and Hopkins parent, led a virtual poetry workshop for 20-25 Hopkins and New Haven Public School high school students. On May 11, he performed portions of Felon, his most recent collection of poetry, and answered questions in a presentation for Hopkins students. Hopkins alumni, parents and faculty will have another opportunity to hear Betts speak about his work on Saturday, June 5, as part of Virtual Alumni Weekend. To register, please visit hopkins.edu/reunion.

The author of four books, Betts was recently named the New York Times Magazine poetry editor. Through funding from the Mellon Foundation and a joint partnership with Yale Law School’s Justice Collaboratory, he also created the Million Book Project, an initiative to curate libraries across the American prison system and create opportunities for incarcerated people to interact with authors and the literary community. Among the many fellowships he has been awarded are a Guggenheim Fellowship and a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship.

Yaa Gyazi, a native of Ghana raised in Huntsville, Alabama, shared excerpts from her debut novel, Homegoing, and her follow-up novel, NY Times bestseller, Transcendent Kingdom, this month with students, faculty, parents and staff. Students in English 9 and all students taking The Humanities Symposium read Homegoing this spring, and on May 24, they had the opportunity to participate in “Author Talk-Back,” a virtual conversation with Gyasi about her novel and the craft of writing. She also shared a video-recorded lecture with the Hopkins community about the give and take relationship between history and literature. A graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop, Gyasi is the winner of the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize and the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best First Novel.