Calls for Papers
Stevens and Fiction | 2026 American Literature Association Annual Conference | Chicago, IL | May 2026
Wallace Stevens famously claimed that the poet “creates the world to which we turn incessantly and without knowing it” and “gives to life the supreme fictions without which we are unable to conceive of it” (CPP 662). Where exactly, we might ask in response, amidst the well-known interplay of “imagination” and “reality” in his verse and thought, does fiction dwell? From his philosophical conjectures about the “fiction” of religious belief to his private readings of nineteenth- and twentieth-century novels, “fictive things” (CPP 47) (“A High-Toned Old Christian Woman”) may have meant many different things to Stevens. The Wallace Stevens Society invites abstracts for 15-minute presentations on any topic relating to Stevens and Fiction. Welcome topics include but are not limited to:
- Stevens and literary genres
- Stevens and narratology
- Philosophical and theoretical perspectives on fiction/fictionality
- Stevens and the novel
- Stevens and belief
- Fiction read by Stevens
- Critical narratives (“fictions”) about Stevens
Please send a title, an abstract of approximately 250 words, and a short biographical note to Nora Pehrson at npehrso1@jhu.edu and Zachary Tavlin at ztavlin@saic.edu by January 15, 2026.
Reception & Roundtable for The Wallace Stevens Journal’s 50th Anniversary | Salem, MA | March 2026
The Wallace Stevens Society encourages its members and friends to celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of The Wallace Stevens Journal this spring at the American Literature Association’s American Poetry symposium in Salem, MA, March 27 and 28, 2026, with a welcoming reception on the evening of Thursday, March 26. We will host, in lieu of a standard academic panel, a roundtable discussion of “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird” and its offspring (in other poems, narrative fiction and essays, visual artwork, musical compositions, and so on), the transcript of which may be edited for inclusion in the Journal’s anniversary issue (WSJ 50.2, Fall 2026).
If you would like to participate in the roundtable discussion, please email Editor Andrew Osborn at aosborn@udallas.eduno later than Friday, October 3, 2025. Type “Salem Stevens Roundtable” as the subject line then include your name, academic affiliation (if any), a ranked list of the three sections of “Thirteen Ways” that you would most like to address, and/or the title of an offspring of the poem that interests you. (For example: Andrew Osborn, University of Dallas / XI, III, V / Raymond R. Patterson’s 26 Ways of Looking at a Black Man.)
If you would like to be kept apprised of the Society’s plans to host a celebratory gathering during the symposium in Salem—that is, if you would like to be invited to the party—please email President Florian Gargaillo at gargaillof@apsu.edu, subject line “Salem Stevens Party,” no later than Monday, February 2, 2026.