David Clewell Visiting Writers Series Starts at Webster University in November
October 11, 2022
The English department will inaugurate the David Clewell Visiting Writers Series at
Webster University this fall with a reading from award-winning poet Nicky Beer.
Beer is the author of three books, including “Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes,” published
by Milkweed Editions in March 2022.
Beer is a two-time winner of the Colorado Book Award for Poetry, a National Endowment
for the Arts Fellow, a Ruth Lilly Fellow and winner of the Campbell Corner Prize.
Webster University’s Director of Creative Writing Murray Farish said Beer was the perfect writer to kick off the new series, named in honor of longtime Webster faculty member and former Missouri Poet Laureate David Clewell, who died in spring of 2020.
“First of all, David loved Nicky’s work,” Farish said. “Their poems are different, but some of their sensibilities and obsessions are similar. And our students are going to be blown away.”
Clewell started the Webster University Visiting Writers Series in 1987. Through the years, he brought nationally and internationally renowned writers and poets to campus. Those writers include Pulitzer Prize winners, National Book Award winners, Booker Prize winners and U.S. Poets Laureate.
After Clewell’s death, the University and the English department raised funds to rename the series in his honor and grow the series’ impact.
“David’s deal with the visiting writers was, all you have to do is come here and give the reading,” Farish said. “We’d usually take the writers out to dinner, but there were no other obligations.”
As part of the new Clewell Series, visiting writers will also meet with a class while they’re in town and work one-on-one with selected students on their writing.
“Our incredibly generous donors made it possible for us to pay visiting writers a little bit more and get a whole lot more for our students out of the experience,” Farish said. “This fall, for example, Elizabeth Hoover’s Topics in Poetry class and Andrea Miller’s Queer Theory class meet at the same time, so we’re going to bring them together in a big room and they’ll all get to have a conversation with Nicky.
“That will be great for those students and getting to work one-on-one with prestigious visiting writers will inspire our creative writers to work hard to be ready to take that opportunity when it comes to them.”
The initial giving campaign for the Clewell Series was one of the most successful in recent Webster history, according to Farish
“David touched so many people over his 35-year career at Webster, with his teaching and his writing and his poetry readings, so I wasn’t surprised,” Farish said. “Humbled, but not surprised. I think he’d be humbled, too, but also proud of the work we’re doing for the students and the St. Louis literary community. Those things meant a lot to David.”
The Clewell Series is still accepting donations.
“Any donation, any size, is wonderful,” Farish said. “We want to keep this series going in David’s name forever and keep bringing these great writers to our campus and our community.”
Beer’s reading will be held on Thursday, Nov. 3, at 1:30 p.m. in Pearson House. The event is free, open to the public and cosponsored by the Faculty Speakers Committee; the Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies program; and The Novel Neighbor, the official bookseller of the David Clewell Visiting Writers Series at Webster University.