Central Washington University announced on May 20 that author and professor Sonora Jha will be the featured guest at the final Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series event of the academic year. The events are scheduled for May 26 in Black Hall’s Multicultural Center and are open to the public.
The Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series brings notable writers to campus, offering students and community members opportunities to engage with literature and creative writing. This upcoming event will include a craft talk at noon in room 105 Black Hall, titled “staying in a state of story,” followed by a question-and-answer session and book signing. Later, at 5:30 p.m., Jha will give a reading in room 107 Black Hall, also followed by Q&A and book signing. Both sessions can be attended online with pre-registration.
Thanks to support from a College of Arts and Humanities Student Activity grant, complimentary lunch will be provided for those attending the craft talk, and five books will be given away at each event to students who attend in person. Jha is set to read from her recent novels “Intemperance”—winner of the Washington State Book Award—and “The Laughter,” which was named among the best books of its year by several publications including The New Yorker and NPR. Her earlier works include “How to Raise a Feminist Son” (2021) and her debut novel “Foreign,” which is set for reissue in fall 2026.
Jha said about her writing process: “Writing has made me live more, not in terms of longevity, of course, but in intensity, in purpose, in presence, and in submission to uncertainty and mystery. When I write, even if I have had a quiet and solitary day, I feel like I have lived three times as much, three more days than were in my share.” In an interview with The Seattle Times she added: “I’m drawn to being disobedient — with storytelling traditions, with a plot structure, with conventions of narrative, with expectations of me as a woman of color writing.”
Jha’s latest novel explores themes such as love, desire, disability, gender norms across cultures, family estrangement—and features an unnamed university professor navigating tradition through organizing her own swayamvar for her birthday. Reviewer Jenny Bartoy described it as “at times laugh out-loud funny…the novel also reckons with…the bucking of generational and cultural expectations.”
The Lion Rock Visiting Writers Series has previously hosted recipients of major literary awards such as MacArthur Genius Awards and Guggenheim Fellowships.