Three well-respected alumni authors drove students to delay the start of their weekend on Friday afternoon and gather for a panel discussion in Kauffman Auditorium.

Junot Díaz MFA ’95, Julie Schumacher MFA ’86 and Melissa Bank MFA ’88, three published writers and three graduates of Cornell’s MFA program, offered curious listeners and hopeful writers a look into the world of 21st century fiction writing. At the afternoon panel, they fielded questions from the audience, lending advice to eager minds. Later that evening, they held a reading in Rockefeller Hall, sharing their works before a standing-room-only audience.

In a hallway hidden in the back of Goldwin Smith Hall, there is a worn metal plaque that hangs outside a certain office. It reads: “The writer Vladimir Nabokov 1899-1977 occupied this office during his tenure at Cornell University 1948-1959.”

Prof. Kenneth McClane ’73, English, who also received his MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell and is the current W.E.B. DuBois Professor of Literature, has occupied that office for six or seven years. The space, however, has not lost its magic for the veteran professor and author, as it continues to humble its current occupant.