Left to right: Christopher Kondrich, Diana Whitney, Gloria Estela González, & Nikita Rodov
Join us on Thursday, October 22, at 7 PM EST in Middlebury College’s Humanities House (115 Franklin Street) for the fifth installment of NER’s Ulysses Reading Series. Named after artist James MacDonell’s Visualizing Ulysses series of schematic prints, which hang throughout the house, this series celebrates new work by writers at all stages of their careers.
Featuring National Poetry Series winner Christopher Kondrich, International Latino Book award winner and Middlebury professor Gloria Estela González, educator and writer Diana Whitney, and Middlebury student writer Nikita Rodov.
Light fare and specialty mocktails inspired by Visualizing Ulysses will be served. This event free and open to the public.
Interested in attending? Help us get a head count by RSVPing here.
Bilingual author Gloria Estela González has published three novels and a collection of short stories. Her novel Arribada (Cynren Press, 2023) was among Kirkus Review’s 100 hundred best Indie books of 2022. Her books have been honored with the Edmund White award for LGBT novel, two International Latino Book awards, and several honorary mentions, including Feminist Press’s Louise Meriwether award. While a Fulbright US Scholar, she researched and wrote “Machado,” her upcoming historical novel about Mazatlán, México. She is currently preparing the second edition of Arribada, as well as a collection of children’s environmental short stories. As the Jean Thompson Fulton Professor of Modern Languages and Literature at Middlebury College, she teaches Latin American culture, creative writing, and Spanish.
Christopher Kondrich is the author of three books of poetry, including Tread Upon (Copper Canyon Press, 2026) and Valuing (University of Georgia Press, 2019), which won the National Poetry Series and was selected by Library Journal as a Best Poetry Book of 2019. He’s the recipient of fellowships from MacDowell and Yaddo, and his poems appear widely in such venues as The Atlantic, The Nation, The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Yale Review. Co-editor of Creature Needs: Writers Respond to the Science of Animal Conservation (University of Minnesota Press, 2025), he is currently Poet-in-Residence for the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland.
Nikita Rodov is a New York Posse Scholar completing his ninth semester at Middlebury as a student teacher, having completed a double major in English Literature and Secondary Education Studies. He has served as the Poetry Editor for Blackbird, Middlebury College’s student arts magazine, and has had his work of short fiction, “Dancing Glass,” published in Keble College’s The Fig. Learning under poets such as Yousif Qasmiyeh and Karin Gottshall, Nikita has a deep passion for the transitive effects of poetry and lyricality—particularly as they help facilitate journeys between memories, the present world, and the self in reverie.
Diana Whitney is a queer writer & educator embracing a fierce belief in the power of poetry as a means of connection to self and others. She is the editor of the bestselling anthology You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves (Workman, 2021), winner of the Claudia Lewis Award, and the author of three full-length poetry collections: Wanting It (Harbor Mountain Press, 2014) Dark Beds (June Road Press, 2023) and Girl Trouble (CavanKerry Press, 2026). A quintuple Gemini, Diana writes across genres. Her essays, poems, and book reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Glamour, and many other outlets. An advocate for survivors of sexual violence in her Vermont hometown and beyond, Diana works as a developmental editor and a community organizer for a rural LGBTQ+ nonprofit. www.diana-whitney.com
