Center for the Literary Arts: A conversation between generations of Cornellians
On the fireplace mantle inside the literary home, the Van Etten-Lacey House, you can read a rather famous piece of work—a recipe for a strong cocktail called the Archbishop, often mixed up and served by the late English Professor Stephen Lacey ’65 during one of the many literary soirees held when he lived in the historic home. VEL, as it’s known, opened 10 years ago but has a history of being “home” on campus for students. Today, students participate in FreeWrite Fridays while baked goods’ delicious smells waft from the kitchen’s oven doors. Before Lacey’s legendary gatherings, Winifred Mayne Van Etten, Class of 1925, lived in the home and hosted tea parties for students.
“Nothing exemplifies lifelong learning like the literary arts,” Professor of English and Creative Writing and Robert P. Dana Director of the Center Rebecca Entel says. “It’s so essential to everything we do—lifelong reader, lifelong writer, and someone who seeks community with other readers and writers.”
Entel says that former visiting writer and novelist Lauren Groff is attributed with saying, “Art is a long, unending conversation between generations.”
Want to mix up Lacey’s cocktail? We have The Archbishop recipe.
View a list of CLA’s visiting and distinguished writers.
The Center hosts a Visiting Writer Series that includes interdisciplinary class visits and readings that serve the greater campus community in a way that is not common at small colleges. The Center is essential to student engagement; it allows first-year students and non-majors to get involved in the world of literary arts.
The Center hosts Distinguished Visiting Writer courses in rotating topics and genres, often with a social justice component and taught by writers of color. It also sponsors professional panels composed of publishers, freelancers, journalists, editors, and agents. Classes make use of the VEL, for writing, workshop, performances, and printshop projects.
Three student-led publications are hosted by the Center: Open Field, BOOM, and a research-based chapbook with varying themes. The chapbook series publishes both faculty and students; the first theme was “Poetry for Your Mama” and a later theme included “Poetry for Resistance.”
Students have benefited from numerous opportunities, such as the creation of the Student Literary Arts Board (SLAB), which hosts events, write-ins, a chapbook, and fosters community.
Read how Van Etten-Lacey House was built by a book.
Internships have provided students with opportunities not common for undergraduates and in conjunction with Cornell’s Ingenuity in Action (experiential learning component of the Ingenuity core curriculum), students earn credits toward their degree with funded internships. Students also complete work-study projects in arts administration and events planning and publicity. Donors from the Class of 1958 funded arts administration internships where each summer two students work and learn at the historic Chautauqua Institution. The Center offers internships with Cleaver Magazine, allowing a deeper understanding of the editorial and publishing industry.
Former vice president of SLAB Kendra Aquino ’19 held two internships while at Cornell, at the Chautauqua Institution and Cleaver Magazine, where she is an editor today.
“My internship at the Chautauqua Institution was a formative and rewarding experience,” says Aquino. “While you are there you are immersed in inspiring lectures and small group writing workshops with world-renowned authors and poets. Being a literary arts intern gave me the confidence to pursue my craft and helped me create genuine and lasting connections to the literary community.”
After Cornell, students have gone on to earn Fulbright awards, M.F.A., and M.A. degrees.
Alumni have published their work and gone into careers in editing, journalism, library science, freelance writing, education, story development for video game companies, and grant writing.
Read Clare McCarthy’s ’16 reportage for Iowa Watch on the history of refugees in Iowa.
Former SLAB member and Fulbright award winner Randy Santiago ’18 is in an M.F.A. program at the University of Miami, has numerous publications, and started a podcast with his brother called Homies of Lit, which Entel says introduces literature to people who might not live somewhere where they can get connected to the literary scene. Novelist Sandra Cisneros reached out to be on the podcast. Cisneros, like Santiago, is from Humboldt Park, a neighborhood in Chicago.
Homies of Lit is on hiatus but you can listen to the episode with Cisneros.
Entel hopes that in the future the Center for the Literary Arts will fund more internships for students, be able to fairly pay more high-profile visiting writers and publishing professionals to work with students, and fund students to attend undergraduate editorial conferences, and make the Van Etten-Lacey House more accessible.
Do you have memories you’d like to share about the literary arts at Cornell? If so, email cornellreport@cornellcollege.edu
