Harambe Harmony Mural on MLK in Cincinnati

Public Programs

Public programs bring UC writers into Cincinnati neighborhoods in partnership with community organizations for readings, talks, tours, and guided writing activities.

Always open to the public, always free!

View down Historic Bolivar Alley with street murals and colorful graffiti

SPRING IN OUR STEPS COLLABORATION

We’re excited to partner with Spring in Our Steps, an organization that works to cleanup and promote the use of neglected public spaces as alley and stairways. In the works for this semester is a tour of some of these “forgotten pedestrian spaces” around UC with SIOS executive director Christian Huelsman. We’ll ask how these spaces might inform our teaching, writing, or research and how in turn might we help renew them through community-oriented projects.

Community of writers listens to a reader in the cozy Laboiteaux Woods Center

WRITING IN THE WOODS: AN ECO-LIT CELEBRATION

LaBoiteaux Woods Nature Center was the site for an afternoon of reading and writing inspired by the natural world. Featured were a short talk about the history and ecology of LaBoiteaux Woods from Cincinnati Parks naturalist, Lara Wardlow, readings by community members as well as UC undergrad and grad students, and hands-on writing activities designed by UC grad students. A coffee truck was on hand to serve attendees with a variety of hot beverages.

ALLOY: IRiS INTERDISCIPLINARY EVENT SERIES

PhD candidate Madeleine Wattenberg read her poems at the Lunken Airport Terminal as part of an event titled “Biomimicry and the Future of Sensing," part two of an roundtable series. Alloy is hosted by UC’s Institute for Research in Sensing (IRiS), “an interdisciplinary research institute focused on novel routes to innovation in sensing research and sensor technology development through purposeful integration of STEM and non-STEM perspectives." UC English continues to work with IRiS as these innovative public events continue.

Michael Griffith speaking to a crowd in from of a historic Spring Grove mausoleum.

SPRING GROVE CEMETERY RAMBLE

During October and November of 2021, Michael Griffith, UC professor and author of The Speaking Stone: Stories Cemeteries Tell, led a guided ramble through some of his favorite spots in Spring Grove Cemetery. Graduate students from UC’s College-Conservatory of Music Citlalmina Hernandez Toro, clarinetist, and Vera Wei-Jung Hsu, violinist, coordinated musical interludes inspired by the cemetery’s residents and history.