Vane Creative Artist Series

Reading and Writing When the World Seems Lost
Image copyright Elizabeth Haidle and Paul D. Mascot

Reading and Writing When the World Seems Lost

with visiting writer Deb Olin Unferth in conversation with Patrick Cottrell ’04

The 2026 Vane Creative Artist Series was hosted on October 1.

Deb Olin Unferth and Patrick Cottrel onstage at Sundin as part of the Vane Creative Artists Series
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Reading and Writing When the World Seems Lost

View the Vane Creative Artist Series presentation held on October 1, 2026, at Hamline University's Sundin Music Hall.

A conversation with visiting writer Deb Olin Unferth, author of Earth 7 (Graywolf, 2026), and Hamline alum and novelist Patrick Cottrell '04.

About the 2026 series

Reading and writing can offer new ways of understanding ourselves and the world around us, particularly in times of personal, cultural, and environmental loss. In this conversation, author Deb Olin Unferth and alumnus and novelist Patrick Cottrell will explore how writers respond to a world in transition—and how reading can help us navigate uncertainty, grief, and change.

Unferth will read from her new novel, Earth 7 (Graywolf 2026), which explores climate disaster, grief, and humanity’s relationship with the planet. She will then join Cottrell, author of Afternoon Hours of a Hermit (HarperCollins 2026), for a conversation about adaptation, transition, and change—central subjects in both of their work.

Together, Unferth and Cottrell will consider what continues to make the novel “novel” and how writers find new ways to see and reflect on ourselves and the world around us. Their conversation will explore what reading and writing can offer when the world seems lost—and how literature might help us imagine what comes next.

Contact Meghan Maloney-Vinz at mvinz01@hamline.edu with questions about the Vane Creative Artist Series.

Earth 7, by Deb Olin Unferth
Deb Olin Unferth (image copyright Nick Berard)
Deb Olin Unferth (image copyright Nick Berard)

About the 2026 visiting author

Deb Olin Unferth

Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including the novels Earth 7 (June 2026), published by Graywolf Press, Barn 8, currently in development for film by Searchlight Pictures, and Vacation; the memoir Revolution, finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award; two story collections; and the graphic novel, I, Parrot. Her fiction and essays have appeared in more than fifty magazines and journals, including Harper’s, The New York Times, The Paris Review, Granta, and McSweeney’s. She has received a Guggenheim fellowship, three Pushcart Prizes, a Creative Capital Fellowship for Innovative Literature, and fellowships from the MacDowell, Yaddo, and Ucross residencies.

Unferth is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches for the Michener Center and the New Writers’ Project. She also directs the Pen City Writers, a prison creative writing program at a south Texas penitentiary. Originally from Chicago, she lives in Austin with philosophy professor Matt Evans.

About the Vane Creative Artist Series

The Vane Creative Artist Series is made possible through a fund established by George T. Vane LHD (hon.) '15, Hamline emeritus professor, to support literature and drama at Hamline. This generous gift reflects Vane’s commitment to bringing authors, critics, poets, and dramatists to campus and developing programs that encourage and enhance creativity. Even after his death in 2019, George’s legacy of supporting students continues to fund scholarships, library acquisitions, and this event.

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