The Hemingway Center Reading Series and Creative Writing MFA Program present renowned poet Robyn Schiff, author of the critically acclaimed "Information Desk: An Epic," a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

“If you read only one poetry collection this year [...] make it Robyn Schiff’s 'Information Desk: An Epic.'”

-The New York Times

“Not many books, let alone book-length poems, are as can’t-put-it-down propulsive as Robyn Schiff’s fourth book, 'Information Desk: An Epic.' [...] Readers of all kinds will be overwhelmed by this book’s wonders.”

-The LA Review of Books

Event Details

At 7:30 PM on Friday, September 26, 2025, Schiff will give a reading of her work, followed by a Q and A and book signing. Free and open to the public, the Hemingway Center Reading Series brings renowned writers to campus each year.

“Schiff’s poems, with their Hitchcock-like distrust of appearances, their alertness to hidden binds and snares, offer something few poets ever discover: a vision of the whole world [...] Without showiness, Schiff’s poems investigate the reality of their own harrowing visions. [...] In poems that take superstition utterly seriously, Schiff can’t keep out of her mind the idea that the poet’s rightful property is her fear of losing everything. ”

-Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker

About Robyn Schiff

Robyn Schiff authored four collections of poetry, including the volume "Information Desk: An Epic" (Penguin 2023, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. The book received the Four Quartets Prize of the Poetry Society of America. A recipient of the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize at the American Academy in Rome and a Guggenheim Fellowship, Schiff co-edits the independent poetry press Canarium Books and serves as a professor at the University of Chicago, where she also directs the Program in Creative Writing.