Renowned poet Lynn Emanuel will visit Penn State February 9-12 as this year’s Fisher Family Writer-in-Residence. She will give a free public reading as part of her visit on Thursday, February 12 at 6 p.m. in Paterno Library’s Foster Auditorium on the University Park campus. 

Lynn Emanuel is the author of six books of poetry. Her selected poems, The Nerve of It, was awarded the Lenore Marshall Award by The Academy of American Poets. She has been awarded the Eric Matthieu King Award from the Academy, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, The National Poetry Series Award, and a fellowship from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation. She has been a judge for the National Book Awards and has taught at numerous venues including the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and The Warren Wilson Program. Her poetry has been published and reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine, LA Review of Books, and Publisher’s Weekly. Her poems have been translated into Russian, Spanish, Mongolian, French, and Urdu.

The Fisher Family Writer-in-Residence program brings a well-known writer to campus each year to share their expertise and work with students in undergraduate creative writing classes and the graduate BA/MA creative writing program. The visit is funded primarily through the generosity of Steven Fisher, a 1970 Penn State graduate in English, with additional support from the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment, University Libraries, the Department of English, and the College of the Liberal Arts. A full list of readings in the 2025-26 series can be found at creativewriting.psu.edu.