Grand Valley Writers Series presents Katie Jean Shinkle with Randy Lee Maitland

Thursday, October 1, 2026
6:00 p.m. - 7:15 p.m.
Allendale Campus
Alumni, Community, Faculty, Staff, Students

Writers and GVSU alumni Katie Jean Shinkle and Randy Lee Maitland (Writing majors, class of 2007) will share their work and discuss their creative process, professional paths, and making a life as an artist.

Katie Jean Shinkle is the author of five books and 10 chapbooks, including The Only Way Out is Through (YesYes Books, 2026), Transference (Gasher Press, 2025), and Tannery Bay (coauthored with Steven Dunn, FC2, 2024). She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama, a PhD in Creative Writing and Literary Arts from the University of Denver, and is an associate professor of creative writing and Director of the MFA in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing program at Sam Houston State University.

Upon graduating from GVSU in 2007, Randy Lee Maitland decamped for New York City where he earned his MFA in poetry from Brooklyn College. He spent a year in Dusseldorf, Germany, teaching English at a language school; worked as an editor at FLAUNT Magazine in Los Angeles; and returned to Brooklyn to work for artist Dustin Yellin and formed the art collective the BAZAAR TEENS. Most recently, as part of the New York City Teaching Fellows program, he became a public school teacher at a transfer school in Brownsville, Brooklyn. Currently he’s working on a larger, undisclosed film project.

Location Information

Multipurpose Room, Mary I. Library

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Download parking map for the Allendale Campus

Contact Information

[email protected] (Grand Valley Writers Series Coordinator, Caitlin Horrocks)

Hosting Department, Organization, or Business

Grand Valley Writers Series

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This event was added to the calendar by Caitlin Horrocks (horrockc@gvsu.edu) on Wednesday, August 26, 2026 and was last updated on Thursday, August 27, 2026 at 8:37 a.m.