Ten writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Elizabeth Strout, Junot Diaz, and Jeffrey Eugenides, will visit campus, providing the 55 students in the class a unique opportunity to interact with them in several different settings.

Colgate students and faculty gathered last week to listen to a wide-ranging talk by Ishmael Reed, the novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright who is often called one of the most influential African American writers of his generation.

Reed's well-known works include Mumbo Jumbo, Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down, and The Freelance Pallbearers. Besides his writing, Reed also has a passion for music. He plays piano and has collaborated with jazz musicians on three CDs, Conjure 1,2,3

A cultural cornucopia is available for members of the campus and local communities as authors, filmmakers, and musicians from around the world will visit Colgate in the coming days.

The university is hosting two longtime events -- the Colgate Writers' Conference and the Chenango Summer MusicFest -- and, for the first time, the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar.

Colgate professor Peter Balakian, whose book The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America's Response was a New York Times bestseller, is the first guest for a new podcast series produced on campus.