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https://myumi.ch/ZellWriters26
Zell Visiting Writers Series readings and Q&As are free and open to the public and will be offered both virtually (via Zoom) and in person (in UMMA's Stern Auditorium). Seats are offered on a first come, first served basis; please arrive early to secure a spot.
Tisa Bryant’s writing explores Black women’s subjectivity by remixing rhetorical, literary, cinematic and visual arts techniques into original modes of narrative and storytelling. Her latest book, Residual, is an assemblage of the interiors of grief, the home as archive, and the mystery of mothers, published by Nightboat Books in 2026. Her first book, Unexplained Presence, on the mythologies of Black presences in the arts, was reissued by Wave Books in 2024. In her afterword to Unexplained Presence, renowned critic Margo Jefferson hailed Tisa as a “literary and film auteur, an auteur of performance on the page, stage and screen or canvas.”
A Boston native, Tisa was a member of the Dark Room Collective, an African-diasporic writing group that hosted a celebrated reading series in Cambridge and Boston. She is co-editor of the three-volume, cross-referenced literary journal, The Encyclopedia Project, and collaborated from 2015-2018 with critic and writer Ernest Hardy on The Black Book, an original talk and film series presented at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Tisa is editor of Deep West Assembly, a monograph of recent works by the award-winning visual artist Cauleen Smith, forthcoming in 2026 from Astrup Fearnley Museet and Kestner Gesellschaft. She lives in Iowa City, where she is Associate Professor of English in the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and is currently at work on a novel.
For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email zvwseries@umich.edu--we are eager to help ensure this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. Diaper changing tables are available in nearby restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are available on the second floor of the Museum, accessible via the stairs, or in nearby Hatcher Graduate Library (Floors 3, 4, 5, and 6). The Hatcher Library also offers a reflection room (4th Floor South Stacks), and a lactation room (Room 13W, an anteroom to the basement women's staff restroom, or Room 108B, an anteroom of the first floor women's restroom). ASL interpreters and CART services at in-person events are available upon request; please email zvwseries@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event, whenever possible, to allow time to arrange services.
U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor).
For Public Parking: The Maynard Street Public Parking Structure (324 Maynard St., Ann Arbor) or The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor). All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.
Zell Visiting Writers Series readings and Q&As are free and open to the public and will be offered both virtually (via Zoom) and in person (in UMMA's Stern Auditorium). Seats are offered on a first come, first served basis; please arrive early to secure a spot.
Tisa Bryant’s writing explores Black women’s subjectivity by remixing rhetorical, literary, cinematic and visual arts techniques into original modes of narrative and storytelling. Her latest book, Residual, is an assemblage of the interiors of grief, the home as archive, and the mystery of mothers, published by Nightboat Books in 2026. Her first book, Unexplained Presence, on the mythologies of Black presences in the arts, was reissued by Wave Books in 2024. In her afterword to Unexplained Presence, renowned critic Margo Jefferson hailed Tisa as a “literary and film auteur, an auteur of performance on the page, stage and screen or canvas.”
A Boston native, Tisa was a member of the Dark Room Collective, an African-diasporic writing group that hosted a celebrated reading series in Cambridge and Boston. She is co-editor of the three-volume, cross-referenced literary journal, The Encyclopedia Project, and collaborated from 2015-2018 with critic and writer Ernest Hardy on The Black Book, an original talk and film series presented at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Tisa is editor of Deep West Assembly, a monograph of recent works by the award-winning visual artist Cauleen Smith, forthcoming in 2026 from Astrup Fearnley Museet and Kestner Gesellschaft. She lives in Iowa City, where she is Associate Professor of English in the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa, and is currently at work on a novel.
For any questions about the event or to share accommodation needs, please email zvwseries@umich.edu--we are eager to help ensure this event is inclusive to you. The building, event space, and restrooms are wheelchair accessible. Diaper changing tables are available in nearby restrooms. Gender-inclusive restrooms are available on the second floor of the Museum, accessible via the stairs, or in nearby Hatcher Graduate Library (Floors 3, 4, 5, and 6). The Hatcher Library also offers a reflection room (4th Floor South Stacks), and a lactation room (Room 13W, an anteroom to the basement women's staff restroom, or Room 108B, an anteroom of the first floor women's restroom). ASL interpreters and CART services at in-person events are available upon request; please email zvwseries@umich.edu at least two weeks prior to the event, whenever possible, to allow time to arrange services.
U-M employees with a U-M parking permit may use the Church Street Parking Structure (525 Church St., Ann Arbor) or the Thompson Parking Structure (500 Thompson St., Ann Arbor).
For Public Parking: The Maynard Street Public Parking Structure (324 Maynard St., Ann Arbor) or The Forest Avenue Public Parking Structure (650 South Forest Ave., Ann Arbor). All of these options include parking spots for individuals with disabilities.
| Building: | Museum of Art |
|---|---|
| Event Type: | Lecture / Discussion |
| Tags: | Ann Arbor, book discussion, book event, Books, Contemporary Literature, Creative Writing, Culture, Department Of English Language And Literature, Free, Graduate, Lecture, literary, Literary Arts, Literature, Mfa Program In Creative Writing, Rackham, Talk, The Helen Zell Writers' Program, UMMA, Undergraduate, Writing, zell visiting writers series |
| Source: | Happening @ Michigan from Zell Visiting Writers Series, Residential College [RC], English Language & Literature - MFA Program in Creative Writing, University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA), University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program, Department of English Language and Literature |
