Collection Areas: Bothe Lecture Collection

Christopher Bothe, a member of the Western Maryland College Class of 1972, was a poet, an award-winning journalist, and a printer who died in 1984. The annual B. Christopher Bothe Memorial Lecture brings a visiting writer to campus for one day to meet with student writers in and out of class and give a public reading/lecture. Bothe's family and friends endowed the lecture in his memory in 1987.

Click on the names to open a new window with a Hoover Library Catalog search of all items by that speaker.

1987 – John Wheatcroft – poet, playwright, novelist, short story writer

1988 – Dave Smith – poet, short story writer, novelist, essayist

1989 – William Heyen – poet, critic, teacher, editor, short story writer

1990 – Ellen Bryant Voight – poet, teacher

1991 – Josephine Jacobsen – poet, short story writer, critic

1992 – Philip Levine – poet, teacher, translator

1993 – Nina Cassian – poet, fiction writer

1994 – Conrad Hilberry – poet, editor, teacher

1995 – Mary Swander – poet, essayist, teacher

1996 – Roland Flint – poet, teacher

1997 – Eleanor Wilner – poet, teacher

1998 – John Douglas, WMC ’69 – writer

1998 – Eric Byrd, WMC ’93 – musician

1999 – Jean Valentine – poet, teacher

2000 – Henry Taylor – poet, teacher

2001 – Michael Collier – poet, editor, teacher

2002 – Stanley Plumly – poet, essayist, teacher

2003 – Steven Dunn – poet, teacher

2004 – Ethelbert Miller – poet, professor, editor

2005 – Ann Townsend – poet, teacher

2006 – Rodney Jones – poet, teacher

2007 – Josephine Dickinson – poet

2008 – Stephen Tapscott – poet, translator

2009 – Barbara Hurd – poet, essayist

2010 – Mary Jo Salter – poet, essayist

2011 – Billy Collins – poet, editor

2012 – Claudia Emerson – poet

2013 – Lia Purpura – poet, essayist

2014 – Eric Pankey – poet, visual artist

2015 – Carol Frost – poet

2016 – Kathy Mangan – poet, teacher

2017 – Gary J. Whitehead – poet

2018 – Karen Meadows, WMC '99 & Melissa Atkinson Mercer, McD '10 – poets

2019 – Jan Beatty – poet, professor, radio host

2020 – Barbara Hamby & David Kirby – poets, professors CANCELED 

2023 – Christine Lincoln – poet

2024 - Gilbert Arzola - poet, writer

2025 - Lady Brion - poet