Institutional News

"Can I Get an Amen?"

In what was called “one of the best Commencement speeches ever” at Bennington, Allan Gurganus received a standing ovation for his address to Bennington Writing Seminars graduates, “Advice for Masters of Fine Arts Entering Trump’s America.”

Allan Gurganus

Allan Gurganus is the author of Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All (Se Kaufman Prize from the American Academy), White People (Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Pen-Faulkner Finalist), Plays Well with Others, The Practical Heart: Four Novellas (Lambda Literary Award) and most recently Local Souls and Decoy. His stories have won the National Magazine Prize and have been honored in Best American Stories, The O’Henry Prize Collection and The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, and his essays and editorials appear in the New York Times and The New York Review of Books. Gurganus was a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His novel-in- progress, slated for 2019, is South of God: The Erotic History of a Country Baptist Church.

Gurganus's speech was published at LitHub. Watch the full video of the event.

Some cling to Father, Son, Holy Ghost. For the rest of us, Subject-Object-Verb is our last best shot. Allan Gurganus