The 2024–25 Visiting Writers Series at Hartwick College

In addition to this year’s Oneonta Literary Festival, at which Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Ross Gay, Anna Kornbluh, and many others will be speaking, the Hartwick College and the Department of Literature, Media, and Writing will present three readings in the 2024–25 Visiting Writers Series. Readings take place at 7:00 in the Eaton Lounge, Bresee Hall at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York.


I will be reading on Wednesday, September 24, 2024 from my new book, 2013–2017: Sonnets (LJMcD Communications, 2024).

Libby Cudmore will be reading from her new book, Negative Girl (Datura, 2024), on Wednesday, November 13, 2024.

And Amish Trivedi will be reading, including from his newest book FuturePanic (Co•Im•Press, 2021), on Thursday, April 10, 2025.

For more information, visit the Visiting Writers Series webpage.

2013–2017: Sonnets

Now available! 2013–2017: Sonnets, my third book of poetry and the first volume of my American Sonnet sequence, has been published by LJMcD Communications. It can be ordered through Amazon

Fest, Bradley J--Cover for 2013-2017--cover

2013–2017: Sonnets is the first volume in Bradley J. Fest’s ongoing sequence of American sonnets, a project concerned with how the distributed networks of the twenty-first century construct and filter time. Continuing the program of poetic assemblage explored in his first two books, these poems were composed consecutively as emergent temporal snapshots documenting certain experiences of what it was like to live precariously in the overdeveloped world between 2013 and 2017. Over the past decade, this ongoing experimental sonnet sequence has become: a complex encounter with time and its twenty-first-century rhythms; a document of artistic maturation; a personal archive of occasions, moments, days; a continually refreshed confrontation with the global computational hyperarchive; a discography of popular music; an extended reflection on contemporary literature, art, and culture; an increasingly multiplex meditation on the sonnet; an historical record of the troubling national situation in the United States; and a work of mourning for a world disappearing into climate emergency. The second volume, currently in progress, begins in 2018.

Eternal thanks to Lachlan J. McDougall for bringing 2013–2017 into the world and to Taylor Baldwin for the cover image.

Fest, Bradley J--Cover for 2013-2017--spread

“2015.10,” “2015.23,” and “2016.10” Reprinted in What We Did during the Apocalypse: The Archive of “The Babel Tower Notice Board”

What We Did During the Apocalypse--The Babel Tower Notice Board_Page_001The Babel Tower Notice Board, a pandemic project that existed between August 2020 and December 2021 edited by Richard Capener, was just collected in What We Did during the Apocalypse: The Archive of “The Babel Tower Notice Board” (Hem Press, 2024). I was thrilled then and continue to be thrilled that three sonnets of mine, “2015.10,” “2015.23,” and “2016.10,” are part of that project. Thanks again to Capener for his amazing work on The Babel Tower Notice Board, for his monthly Babel Parish Newsletter–a welcome dispatch during those difficult months–and for his continued great work with Hem Press.

(And “2015.10,” “2015.23,” and “2016.10” will all be collected in my third book of poems, 2013–2017: Sonnets, forthcoming in July from LJMcD Communications.)

2013–2017: Sonnets Will Be Published by LJMcD Communications in July 2024

Fest, Bradley J--Cover for 2013-2017--600 resolution--coverI am absolutely thrilled to announce that 2013–2017: Sonnets, the first volume of my ongoing sonnet sequence, will be published by LJMcD Communications in July 2024. I’ll update this page with more information when I have it, but for now, here’s a description of the book:

2013–2017: Sonnets is the first volume in Bradley J. Fest’s ongoing sequence of American sonnets, a project concerned with how the distributed networks of the twenty-first century construct and filter time. Continuing the program of poetic assemblage explored in his first two books, these poems were composed consecutively as emergent temporal snapshots documenting certain experiences of what it was like to live precariously in the overdeveloped world between 2013 and 2017. Over the past decade, this ongoing experimental sonnet sequence has become: a complex encounter with time and its twenty-first-century rhythms; a document of artistic maturation; a personal archive of occasions, moments, days; a continually refreshed confrontation with the global computational hyperarchive; a discography of popular music; an extended reflection on contemporary literature, art, and culture; an increasingly multiplex meditation on the sonnet; an historical record of the troubling national situation in the United States; and a work of mourning for a world disappearing into climate emergency. The second volume, currently in progress, begins in 2018.

Also, thanks much to my very good friend Taylor Baldwin for the amazing cover image: The Interpreter (2010).

“Archives of Spring” in The Decadent Review

The final poem in my “Archives” series, “Archives of Spring,” is out in The Decadent Review. The whole series can be accessed hereEnormous thanks to Dimitri Kaufman, editor of The Decadent Review, for presenting these poems in such a wonderful fashion over the past year. And if you want links to each individual other poem, here they are: “Archives of Summer,”Archives of Autumn,” and “Archives of Winter.”

“2021.05,” “2022.03,” and “2022.04” in The Kitchen Sink

As I mentioned in my last post, my work appeared in two different publications today. The second: More sonnets from my ongoing sequence, “2021.05,” “2022.03,” and “2022.04,” are in The Kitchen Sink, a brand-new publication based in Oneonta, New York (where I currently reside) run by recent graduates of the State University of New York at Oneonta. Thanks to Alexis Ochi and the other editors for accepting my work. I’m also thrilled to have these poems published alongside work from one of my students at Hartwick College.

The 2022–23 Visiting Writers Series at Hartwick College

This year, Hartwick College and the Department of Literature, Media, and Writing will present four readings in the 2022–23 Visiting Writers Series. Readings take place at 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. in Eaton Lounge, Bresee Hall at Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York.

All campus visitors, including attendees at campus-based public events, must have up to date vaccinations for COVID-19. The College reserves the right to require masks on an event-by-event basis.


Poet Raena Shirali will read on Thursday, October 27, 2022 at 7:30 p.m., including from her new book summonings (Black Lawrence, forthcoming 2022).

Fiction writer Tessa Yang will read from her brand new collection, The Runaway Restaurant (7.13, forthcoming October 2022) on Wednesday, November 16, 2022 at 7:00 p.m.

Fiction writer, poet, and game designer Julian K. Jarboe will read from their work on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.

And poet and nonfiction writer Sten Carlson will read from his work on Friday, April 28, 2023 at 7:00 p.m.

For more information, visit the Visiting Writers Series webpage.