The Cherry Reading Series, established in 1991, is named in honor of Robert Foster Cherry, a member of the Rice Institute Class of 1930. It is administered by the creative writing faculty of the English Department, and supported by endowed funds at Fondren Library. The funds have brought a range of emerging and established writers of national repute to read their poetry, fiction, and non-fiction for the Rice community. Readers offer a public reading, visit creative writing workshops taught on campus, and meet with faculty and students in the program.   

2024 Fall - Taneum Bambrick (poet)

2024 Spring - Ishion Hutchinson (poet) & Valzhyna Mort (poet and translator)

2023 Fall - Andrew Porter (author)

2023 Fall - Elizabeth Rush (author)

2023 Spring - Allegra Hyde (author), Christopher Gonzalez (author), Jean Kyoung Frazier (author)

2022 Fall - Wayétu Moore (author)

2022 Spring - Cameron Dezen Hammon (author), Adrian Shirk (author)

2021 Fall - Tomás Q. Morín (poet, author, and translator), Dave Lucas (poet), Michael Coley (author)

2019 Fall - Bryan Washington (author)

2019 Fall - Leslie Contreras Schwartz (poet and author), ire'ne lara silva (poet), Lopa Banerjee (poet)

2019 Spring - Kiese Laymon (author), Karen Thompson Walker (novelist), Jennifer Chang (poet), Michael Collier (poet)

2017 Fall - Sarah Sentilles (author)

2017 Spring - Justin Cronin (novelist), Lacy M. Johnson (author)

2017 Spring - Melissa Febos (author)

2017 Spring - Matthew Olzmann (poet), Paisley Rekdal (poet)

2016 Spring - Robyn Schiff (poet), Nick Twemlow (poet)

2015 Fall - Rick Barot (poet), Mary Gaitskill (author), Sabrinah Orah Mark (author)

2015 Spring - Tiphanie Yanique (author), Brenda Hillman (poet), Susan Minot (novelist), Cecily Parks (author), Paul Otremba (poet)

2014 Spring - Mark Jude Poirer (author), Joshua Weiner (poet)

2013 - Peter Gizzi (poet)

2012 - Lauren Groff (novelist), Karen Rigby (poet), Matthew Hart (poet)

Previous speakers have also included:

Jericho Brown (poet)

Martha Collins (poet)

Percival Everett (author)

David Tomas Martinez (poet)

Cathy Park Hong (poet)

Glenn Shaheen (author)

Jess Walter (author)