Audio and video recordings of the Zell Visiting Writers' Series from Fall 1999 to Winter 2003, and digital videos (MiniDV) for Master of Fine Arts Program Alumni readings from 2002. Also correspondence, photographs, and publicity materials for the Zell Visiting Writers' Series.
The Helen Zell Writers' Program was established in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan in 1982 as the Zell Visiting Writers' Series within the Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Program. Every year, the program selects ten poets and twelve fiction writers from an applicant pool of roughly 1,000. These students spend two years taking craft classes and workshops, attending readings, and meeting individually with faculty members. At the end of their second year, the students submit their MFA theses. Following their successful theses defenses, they are then granted a third-year residency to be spent in Ann Arbor, writing and engaging in the community service work of their choice.
The Program brings more than a dozen poets and fiction writers to the University of Michigan campus every year, both to read and meet with students. The program is named after Helen Zell, the English Department graduate and the University of Michigan Doctor of Humane Letters, who has generously supported the department for many years. Invited guests give readings, hold craft talks, lead workshops, and offer individual consultations with students. Zell Program students also perform readings themselves, and are able to apply for the University of Michigan Hopwood Awards. Named for their benefactor Avery Hopwood, a preeminent playwright of the Jazz Age, the Hopwood Awards collectively offer more than $250,000 in prize money every year to Michigan graduate and undergraduate writers.
Name changes
| Date |
Event |
| 1982-2012 | Department of English Language and Literature Master of Fine Arts Program |
| 2013- | Department of English Language and Literature Helen Zell Writers' Program |
