2012, Francine Prose — Complimentary Toilet Paper: Some Thoughts on Character and Language (PDF)

2011, Elizabeth Alexander — New Ideas About Black Experimental Poetry (PDF)

2010, John Patrick Shanley — Discomfort (PDF)

2009, Ellen Bryant Voigt — Double Talk and Double Visions (PDF)

2008, Charles Johnson — On Literary Culture and Civilization: Autopsy for a Creative Writing Workshop (PDF)

2007, Susan Stamberg — Writing to be Heard (PDF)

2006, Charles Baxter — Losers (PDF)

2005, Susan Orlean — Roads Taken (and Not) (PDF)

2004, Mary Gordon — Flannery's Kiss (PDF)

2003, Richard Howard — The Fatality of Reading (PDF)

2002, Edmund White — Writing Gay (PDF)

2001, Andrea Barrett — Four Voyages (PDF)

2000, Donald Hall — Starting and Keeping On (PDF)

1999, Lawrence Kasdan — POV (PDF)

1998,John Barth — Further Questions? (PDF)

1997, Philip Levine — Two Journeys (PDF)

1996, Louise GlÃck — The Fear of Happiness (PDF)

1995, Diane Johnson — The Writer as a Character (PDF)

1994, Geoffrey Wolff — Writers and Their Characters (PDF)

1993, Roger Rosenblatt — Nine Anti-Rules of Journalism (PDF)

1992, Richard Ford — What We Write About, and Why, and Who Cares (PDF)

1991, Robert Hass — Prisons and Families: Some Thoughts on Contemporary Poetry (PDF)

1990, William Kennedy — Writers and Their Songs (PDF)

1989, Francine du Plessix — Gray Women and Russian Literature (PDF)

1988, Donald Justice — The Prose Sublime (PDF)

1987, Joyce Carol Oates — Beginnings (PDF)

1986, Carolyn Kizer — Poetry of Social Concern Since World War II (PDF)

1985, E. L. Doctorow — The Beliefs of Writers (PDF)

1984, Norman Mailer — The Hazards and Sources of Writing (PDF)

1983, Maxine Hong Kingston — Imagined Life (PDF)

1982, Stephen Spender — The Obsession of Writers with the Act of Writing (PDF)

1981, Arthur Miller — The American Writer: The American Theatre (PDF)

1980, Al Alvarez — The Myth of the Artist (PDF)

1979, Joan Didion — Making Up Stories (PDF)

1978, Tom Wolfe — Literary Technique in the Last Quarter of the Twentieth Century (PDF)

1977, Walker Percy — The State of the Novel: Dying Art or New Science (PDF)

1976, John Simon — The Word on Film (PDF)

1975, Pauline Kael — On Movies (PDF)

1974, W. D. Snodgrass — Moonshine and Sunny Beams: A Rumination on A Midsummer Night's Dream (PDF)

1973, Robert W. Corrigan — The Changing of the Avant-Garde (PDF)

1972, Caroline Gordon — The Shape of the River (PDF)

1971, Theodore Solotaroff — The Practical Critic: A Personal View (PDF)

1970, Nadine Gordimer — Modern African Writing (PDF)

1969, Peter De Vries — Exploring Inner Space (PDF)

1968, Denise Levertov — Origins of a Poem (PDF)

1967, Robert Brustein — No More Masterpieces (PDF)

1966, Peter Taylor — That Cloistered Jazz (PDF)

1965, Donald Davie — Sincerity and Poetry (PDF)

1964, Alfred Kazin — Autobiography as Narrative (PDF)

1963, Arthur Miller — On Recognition (PDF)

1962, Mark Schorer — The Burdens of Biography (PDF)

1961, Saul Bellow — Where Do We Go From Here? The Future of Fiction (PDF)

1960, Theodore Roethke — The Poetry of Louise Bogan (PDF)

1959, Howard Nemerov — The Swaying Form: A Problem in Poetry (PDF)

1958, John Ciardi — The Silences of the Poem (PDF)

1957, Malcolm Cowley — The Beginning Writer in the University (PDF)

1956, Philip Rahv — Literary Criticism and the Imagination of Alternatives (PDF)

1955, Archibald MacLeish — Why Can't They Say What They Mean? (PDF)

1954, John Gassner — Modern Playwriting at the Crossroads (PDF)

1953, Stephen Spender — The Young Writer, Present, Past, and Future (PDF)

1952, Horace Gregory — Dramatic Art in Poetry (PDF)

1951, Mark Van Doren — The Possible Importance of Poetry (PDF)

1950, Norman Cousins — In Defense of a Writing Career (PDF)

1949, F. O. Matthiessen — Responsibilities of the Critic (PDF)

1948, J. Donald Adams — The Writer's Responsibility (PDF)

1947, Robert Penn Warren — The Themes of Robert Frost (PDF)

1946, Harlan Hatcher — Towards American Cultural Maturity (PDF)

1945, Struthers Burt — The Unreality of Realism (PDF)

1944, Louise Bogan — Popular and Unpopular Poetry (PDF)

1943, Mary Colum — Modern Mode in Literature (PDF)

1942, John Crowe — Ransom The Primitive Language of Poetry (PDF)

1941, Edward Weeks — On Counting Your Chickens Before They Hatch (PDF)

1940, Henry Seidel Canby — The American Tradition in Contemporary Literature (PDF)

1939, Carl Van Doren — The First American Man of Letters (PDF)

1938, Walter Prichard Eaton — American Drama Versus Literature (PDF)

1937, Christopher Morley — A Successor to Mark Twain (PDF)

1935, Henry Hazlitt — Literature Versus Opinion (PDF)

1934, Zona Gale — Writing as Design (PDF)

1933, Max Eastman — Literature in the Age of Science (PDF)

1932, Robert Morss Lovett — Literature and Animal Faith (PDF)

Year	Author	Title
2011	Denis Johnson	Fiction Reading
2010	James Wood	Nonfiction reading
2009	Tobias Wolff	Fiction Reading
2008	George Saunders	Fiction Reading
2007	Linda Pastan	Poetry Reading
2006	Alice Fulton	Poetry Reading
2005	Carolyn Forché	Poetry Reading
2004	Nancy Willard	Poetry Reading
2003	Rick Moody	Fiction Reading
2002	Heather McHugh	Poetry Reading
2001	C.K. Williams	Poetry Reading
2000	Sue Miller	Fiction Reading
1999	Yusef Komunyakaa	Poetry Reading
1998	Grace Paley	Fiction Reading
1997	Elmore Leonard	Fiction Reading
1996	Max Apple	Non-fiction Reading
1995	Barry Lopez	Non-fiction Reading
1994	John Ashbery	Poetry Reading
1993	Jamaica Kincaid	Fiction Reading
1992	Charles Simic	Poetry Reading
1991	Bharati Mukherjee	Fiction Reading
1990	Maxine Kumin	Poetry Reading
1989	Derek Walcott	Poetry Reading
1988	George Garrett	Fiction Reading
1987	Richard Wilbur	Poetry Reading
1986	Bernard Malamud	Fiction Reading
1985	Donald Hall	Poetry Reading
1984	William Gaddis	Lecture
1983	James Merrill	Poetry Reading
1982	Stanley Kunitz	Poetry Reading
1981	Gwendolyn Brooks	Poetry Reading
1980	Lewis Lapham	Lecture
1979	Kenneth Rexroth	Poetry Reading
1978	Marge Piercy	Poetry Reading
1977	Eudora Welty	Fiction Reading, Freshman Essay Awards
1977	Maxine Kumin	Poetry Reading
1976	Robert Coles	Non-fiction Reading, Freshman Essay Awards
1976	John Hawkes	Fiction Reading
1975	Joseph Heller	Fiction Reading
1975	John Gardner	Fiction Reading, Freshman Composition Awards
1974	Anthony Hecht	Poetry Reading
1974	George Garrett	Lecture, Freshman Composition Awards
1973	Richard Wilbur	Poetry Reading
1973	E. L. Doctorow	Fiction Reading, Freshman Composition Awards
1972	Adrienne Rich	Poetry Reading
1971	W. D. Snodgrass	Poetry Reading
1970	Louis Simpson	Poetry Reading