Since its founding in 2009, John Cabot University's Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation has become a thriving community of and for writers in Rome. With workshops in the major genres (fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction) and literary translation, the Institute is the place for creative writing students to spend serious time on their writing as they get to know the Eternal City.
In Summer 2026, the Institute is pleased to welcome as Writer in Residence Italian author Andrea Bajani, winner of the Premio Strega, Italy’s most important annual literary prize, for his novel L’anniversario (The Anniversary, Feltrinelli, 2025). Bajani teaches creative writing at Rice University in Houston, Texas.
Visit the Admissions page and learn how to apply.
For further information about the Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation, please contact the Director, Professor Shannon Russell.
May 28: Creative Writing Launch Event with Chiara Barzini6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
Chiara Barzini will read from her book Acqua: A Story of Water and Lost Dreams, a hybrid of memoir, travel, and cultural history that explores how water altered LA and the history of film.
An award-winning Italian screen and fiction writer, Barzini has lived and studied in the United States, where she covered lifestyle and culture stories for numerous American and Italian publications. She writes and translates both in English and Italian and is the author of the short story collection Sister Stop Breathing (Calamari Press, 2012), the novel Things That Happened Before the Earthquake (Doubleday, 2017) which was a Best Book of the Year for Vogue, Esquire, Elle, Bustle, and The Guardian, and a best summer book for the New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, BBC, and Oprah! magazine, and Aqua: A Story of Water and Lost Dreams, which was a Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement in 2025. Her fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and journals. She has a regular column in D Repubblica and is a Literature Advisor at the American Academy in Rome.
Photo credit: Tommaso Gesuato
June 1: Reading by Alessandro Ceschi from his Prize-Winning Memoir6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
Alessandro Ceschi, is a John Cabot alumnus who was born in Padua, Italy in 1993. He began his writing career in primary school when selling handwritten newspapers about the Sunday football games to his classmates. He worked as a sports journalist through his studies, which took him to China to cover the 2014 Youth Olympics. After graduating from John Cabot University in 2016, he moved to Beijing, where he learned Mandarin, taught Italian, and worked as an extra and actor in various films and commercials. He lived the Covid years in China, during which he began keeping an online diary in Chinese that earned him a following on local social media. In 2022, his piece about daily life under Shanghai’s lockdown won the China Writing Contest, a competition held by Sixth Tone, an English language magazine about Chinese society. In 2024, he published his first book, written in Chinese and recounting his years of self-growth and exploration in the country; it made that year’s annual Top 10 on Douban, China’s largest book review website. The book, whose title translates to Dreaming in Mandarin, is set for publication in Italy in May 2026 (Ho fatto un sogno in mandarino, EDT).
June 4: Translation and Reading Event with Giovanna Vivinetto and Gabriella Fee 6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
In her first collection of poetry, Dolore Minimo Giovanna Cristina Vivinetto became the first poet in Italy to discuss transsexuality. That debut collection also won her the prestigious Premio Viarreggio prize and it has since been translated into numerous languages. She will read her poems alongside her English-language translator, the poet and professor Gabriella Fee whose co-translation of Dolore Minimo was published by Saturnalia Books and received the Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize. Fee is currently at work translating Vivinetto's second book of poems, Dove non siamo stati. After their reading, the author and translator will discuss the art of literary translation with JCU faculty member Will Schutt.
2:00 PM, Upper Reading Room
For JCU Creative Writing students only
6:00 PM, online
Andrea Bajani presents Italy Writes award
June 10: Poetry Reading by Allison Grimaldi Donahue 6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
Allison Grimaldi Donahue will present her very recent bilingual poetry book: Composing Ourselves/Comporci (edizioni ensemble, 2026). She will read from the work in its original and from the translations by Graziano Mazza. As an anglophone poet often working with the Italian language Grimaldi Donahue will also share how these books came into being and the tensions unique to carry poetry through various languages and contexts.
Allison Grimaldi Donahue (1984, Connecticut, USA) is the author of a bond that needs not (Remedia, 2026), Composing Ourselves/Comporci (edizioni ensemble, 2026), The History of Breathing (Diaphnes, 2025), Body to Mineral (Publication Studio Vancouver, 2016), and the co-author of On Endings (Delere Press, 2019). She is translator of Carla Lonzi’s Self-portrait (Divided, 2021) and Blown Away (Fomite, 2021) by Vito M. Bonito. Her writing and translations have appeared in places like The Brooklyn Rail, Words Without Borders, Prairie Schooner, BOMB, Evergreen Journal, Mousse, FlashArt, NERO, and Tripwire, and she has recently performed at Guggenheim Venice, Kunsthalle Bern, Cabaret Voltaire, MACRO, MAMbo, Museo Madre Napoli, and Short Theatre Rome.
6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
The 2026 Writer in Residence is Italian author Andrea Bajani. He won the 2026 Premio Strega, Italy’s most important annual literary prize, for his novel L’anniversario (The Anniversary, Feltrinelli, 2025).
June 18: Writer in Residence Talk with Andrea Bajani6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
Be uncertain, be insecure, read poetry.
In June 1972, Joseph Brodsky left the Soviet Union, knowing he would never return. He was accused of parasitism by the Soviet regime, and his passport was consequently revoked. He became a man who belonged to no one. Thus, a free man and at the same time a lonely man. From that moment on, he became stateless. He moved to the United States, where his only home was his language, plus a passport offered to him by the American government. But that didn't mean he ceased to be stateless.
Writing, Brodsky teaches us, isn't about seeking a passport, but about reaching a state of exile, of profound solitude. One that makes you cry alone in a room, and at the same time recounts the human condition. Literature is at home there.
June 24: Roman launch of Moira Egan's new book of poetry, The Furies 6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
Moira Egan, a prize-winning poet and translator, is the author of ten books of poetry, most recently The Furies (LSU Press, 2025) and Amore e morte (a bilingual new & selected poems, Rome: Edizioni Tlon, 2022). Her poems, essays, and translations have been published in journals and anthologies on four continents. In 2023, she won the Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets for her translations of the poetry of Giorgiomaria Cornelio. She lives in Rome with Damiano Abeni, her partner in life as well as in translation.
In The Furies, Egan offers fierce feminist reimaginings of familiar myths and narratives, from Arachne to Echo, from Medusa and Mary Magdalene to the female characters of The Odyssey, in verse that highlights the value of solidarity and collective strength among women. With dazzling erudition and playful ingenuity, she deploys exuberant wordplay and traditional poetic forms to subvert the patriarchal canon. At the heart of the book is a profound exploration of voice, not least the ongoing silencing of women’s voices: Egan blends righteous anger with grief, ultimately finding hope in the transformative power of language.
6:30 PM, Secchia Terrace
Join a thriving community of writers at John Cabot University’s Institute for Creative Writing and Literary Translation in the heart of Rome! Since 2009, our program has offered workshops in fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, and literary translation, making it the perfect place to hone your craft while immersing yourself in the Eternal City.
May 29 (Thu) - Opening Event of the Institute: Hollie McNish Spoken Word Poet Event
6:30-9:00 pm Secchia Terrace
June 3 (Tue) - Nicole Sealey, Writer in Residence, Reading
6:30-9:00 pm Secchia Terrace
June 4 (Wed) - Master class for all Creative Writing students with Writer-in-Residence Nicole Sealey
3:40-5:40 pm Upper Reading Room
June 9 (Mon) - Nicole Sealey, Writer's Talk
6:30-9:00 pm Secchia Terrace
June 12 (Thu) - Translators' Roundtable with Literary Translators: Enrico Terrinoni (Translator of James Joyce) and Iolanda Plescia (Shakespeare, Virginia Wolf), Moderator: Will Schutt
6:30-9:30 pm Secchia Terrace
June 16 (Mon) - David Starkey Reading
6:30-9:00 pm Secchia Terrace
June 19 (Thu) - Charmaine Wilkerson Reading
6:30-9:00 pm Secchia Terrace
June 26 (Thu) - Closing Event: Creative Writing Showcase
6:30-9:00 pm Secchia Terrace
