UNLV Creative Writing

PODCAST EPISODE: THE LOCKED ROOM

Join MFA Alum, Alex Schechter, and Fiction Professor, Maile Chapman, as they discuss lucid dreams, jumping spiders, & her attempts at writing towards the edges of perception.

"Where Did You Come From, Where Did You Go?" features interviews with q***r (and q***r-friendly) writers.

Alumni Spotlight!! UNLV MFA Alum, Billy Lezra .lezra, is the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Rough Cut Press , an online magazine that publishes emerging and established q***r voices, as well as interviews with influential writers and educators. Our intention is to offer another dedicated space for q***r artists in the literary landscape.

We have been honored to publish work by Cass Lintz, Diannely Antigua, Kai Coggin, and Nnadi Samuel, as well as interviews with Dr. Susan Stryker, Myriam Gurba, Krys Malcolm Belc, ALOK, and Andrea Gibson, among others.

UNLV MFA ALUM BOOK SIGNING & EVENT:

AREL WIEDERHOLT KASSAR
Friday May 8th, 2026 @ 7:00PM - 8:00 PM
A READING WITH THE AUTHOR OF THE DESERT SPRING MOVEMENT, IN CONVERSATION WITH HEATHER PETERSON

This event is co-sponsored by Black Mountain Institute.

Andreas Nørgaard, Danish poet, vanishes in Las Vegas and leaves behind a single letter recounting his final days in the city. Now, four narrators grapple with his enigmatic legacy, exploring questions of individualism, disillusionment, consumerism, and artistic obsession.

Arel Wiederholt Kassar is the author of The Desert Spring Movement (Bench Editions, 2026). He has an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and lives in San Francisco, his hometown.

Heather Wells Peterson has published her writing in American Short Fiction, Marie Claire, Lit Hub, The Rumpus, Bellevue Literary Review, Prairie Schooner, and Wigleaf, among others. Her work has been supported by a fellowship at Black Mountain Institute, a Sewanee Writers Conference scholarship, and a Writing by Writers residency. She has an MFA in Fiction Writing from the University of Florida and is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

GOOD NEWS!! A HUGE congratulations goes out to UNLV MFA alumna, Ucheoma Onwutuebe, whose short story "Where Are You and Where Is My Money" appearing in A Public Space, has been chosen as a WINNER of the 2026 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction!

Student Spotlight: JM Huck (Second Year / Poetry MFA)

Artist Statement: Apparently, I’m writing an epic. I also study epics, early literature of Southeast Asia that are used in ritual and performance.

Read all about classes that have inspired her, her upcoming thesis, recent accomplishments, great advice she’s received since being in Vegas, and more!

Maile Chapman worked on The Spoil during her 2010-2011 Fellowship at the Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. She will discuss her book with writer Larissa MacFarquhar.

To join this event in-person | Please be sure to register for an In-Person Ticket. Doors will open 30 minutes before the program begins. For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released shortly before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A standby line will form shortly before the program.

To join the livestream | A livestream of this event will be available on the NYPL event page. To receive an email reminder shortly in advance of the event, please be sure to register! If you encounter any issues, please join us on NYPL's YouTube channel.

Student Spotlight: Seth Kleinschmidt (Second Year / Poetry MFA)

Artist Statement: I write of, for, and from the Midwest - the trees, the birds, the glaciated land, and the wonderful, terrible people. All of that raised me.

Read all about books that have inspired him, his upcoming thesis, recent accomplishments, great advice he’s received since being in Vegas, and more!

MAILE CHAPMAN
Friday March 20th, 2026 @ 7:00PM - 8:00 PM
A READING WITH MAILE CHAPMAN, AUTHOR OF THE SPOIL,
IN CONVERSATION WITH DREW COHEN

This event is co-sponsored by Black Mountain Institute

In a rambling split-level house on the outskirts of Tacoma in the 1970s, a young girl is preoccupied by the anomalous phenomena she reads about in magazines: alien visitations, ESP, pyramid power, the Bermuda Triangle. Meanwhile, she and her stepbrother, thrown uneasily together by disaster and divorce, grow increasingly convinced that a malevolent presence resides in their house, and they develop elaborate strategies to live with it.

Years later, Mandy is living in Las Vegas in a modern townhouse caring for her mother who is in a terminal decline from Alzheimer’s. She works for a real estate company but struggles to focus on her tasks. She takes medication to manage her ADHD, which has her zagging between distraction and obsession, always halfway through some home renovation project. Then, while digging through a box of her mother’s things hoarded in her garage, she sets something loose. Something old and baleful: a demon that soon possesses one of her neighbors, an affable semiretired house flipper and handyman named TK. What follows is a gripping and often terrifying story of familial grief in which the past is both elusive and paralyzing, and questions of science and spirit become urgent.

The Spoil, Maile Chapman’s first novel in fifteen years, is tuned in to the most unusual frequencies, bringing us messages from beyond about the deepest mysteries of grief and longing.

Maile Chapman is the author of Your Presence Is Requested at Suvanto, a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award and the PEN Center USA literary award. She teaches in the English and Creative Writing International Program at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Good News! Current MFA student, Jade Bailey Brock, published a book review of "The Dream of the Jaguar" by Miguel Bonnefoy in The Harvard Review! It can be found at harvardreview.org/review

Congratulations, Jade! 🎊

Student Spotlight: Jeneé Skinner (First Year / Fiction PhD)

Artist Statement: I'm most attracted to magical realism, folklore, Gothic, lyrical dreamy language, and landscapes. Family sagas and epics, the body, mental illness, artistry, any other strange, rich ecosystems.

Read all about classes that have inspired her, recent accomplishments, some great advice she’s received since being in Vegas, and more!