As the Spring semester kicks off, the last week of February will begin the annual Allan Hamilton Dickson Spring Writer Series. A long-standing tradition hosted by the English Department, it features a wide variety of poets, directors and writers. The guests will speak about and share their published work, providing an opportunity for our community to experience and engage with different authors first-hand. This spring series will feature Brionne Janae, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah and Lauren Klein.

Living in Brooklyn, New York, Brionne Janae is a poet and the author of Because You Were Mine (2023), Blessed are the Peacemakers (2021) and After Jubilee (2017). Janae was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry and won the 2020 Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize. A Southern California native, she is a teaching artist and enjoys spending time with her two dogs. She earned her MFA at Emerson College and her B.A. at U.C. Brionne Janae will be visiting Wilkes on Wednesday, February 25.

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, a National Book Foundation’s ‘5 Under 35’ honoree, is a young and powerful fiction writer who grew up in Spring Valley, New York. Debuting in 2018 with Friday Black, he has written over twelve novels. Winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction and a New York Times best-selling author, Wilkes is profoundly excited to host Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah on Wednesday, March 25.

The final 2026 Hamilton Dickson Spring Writer Series author is researcher and writer Lauren Klein, a Professor of Data & Decision Sciences and English at Emory University. Co-author of Data Feminism, she has also co-edited Debates in the Digital Humanities and is set to release her book Data by Design: From the History of Visualization to the Future We Need in Fall 2026. At Emory, she also directs the Digital Humanities Lab and the Atlanta Interdisciplinary AI Network. In both early American history and today, Klein has researched breakthrough methods in questioning gender, race, and justice in the world. On Tuesday, April 24, and Wednesday, April 25, Wilkes will be sharing her powerful words and ideas with our campus community.

These three authors of profound work will have the opportunity to share their stories and research with the Wilkes campus very soon. Don’t miss out on the engaging, informative, and groundbreaking lectures these three trailblazers will be sharing this Spring!