Wilson Art Center Elzay Gallery of Art
United States
The spring 2026 English Reading Series will feature multi-genre authors Leah Umansky and Virginia Konchan, reading alongside senior creative writing major Mary Vogel. The reading will take place Wednesday, March 25th, from 7-8pm in the Wilson Center Elzay Gallery of Art.
Leah Umansky is an educator and the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Of Tyrant (The Word Works, 2024) and The Barbarous Century (Eyewear Publishing), and two chapbooks. She earned her MFA in Poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and has hosted The COUPLET Reading Series in NYC since 2011. Her work has been widely published in journals and can be found on PBS and The Slowdown podcast.
Virginia Konchan is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Requiem (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2025), Bel Canto (Carnegie Mellon, 2022), and Hallelujah Time (Véhicule Press, 2021). A recipient of fellowships from the Amy Clampitt Poet Residency Program and the National Endowment for the Humanities, her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, the Academy of American Poets, and Best American Poetry 2025. She lives in Cleveland, where she works as a literary editor and teaches at the Cleveland Institute of Art.
The reading, free and open to the public, will be followed by a Q & A session and book signing. This event is supported with a generous gift from Phil Oleson, BSPh '66, and Mary (Monstwil) Oleson, BSPh '70.