'25-26 Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence, Camille Bordas

Novelist, short story writer and academic Camille Bordas will join Duke English as the '25-26 Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence. Bordas will be the department's third Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence. She has taught at the University of Florida and written for notable publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Tin House, Chicago Magazine, and LitHub.

Each Blackburn Artist-in-Residence selection is an author who also has teaching experience, at least one published book, has other publications, has earned distinction with their publications, and is committed to engaging with the literary and intellectual life of the English department, which includes giving public readings and participating in workshops. Previous artist-in-residence include Toby Martinez de Las Rivas, '23-24, and during the '25 Fall semester, Duke English will host two Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence as Professor Frances Leviston finishes her tenure as the 2024-25 Visiting Blackburn Artist-in-Residence.

Camille Bordas was born in France and raised in Mexico City and Paris, but now resides in Chicago, IL. She has published works in both French and English. Partie Commune and Les Treize Desserts, her first two published works, were written in her native language, French. She has authored two novels, The Material(Random House, 2024) and How to Behave in a Crowd (Tim Duggan Books, 2017), in English. Her most recent The Material chronicles a typical end-of-semester day in the lives of students and teachers in a stand-up comedy MFA program.

During the Fall '25 semester, Professor Bordas will teach two creative writing courses. She will teach English 110S.02 "Introduction to Creative Writing." She plans for this class to be a writing workshop, focusing on short stories and personal essays. Bordas will also teach English 221S.01, "Intro to the Writing of Fiction." Which she has tailored for fiction lovers who are interested in learning more about the genre and developing their fiction writing skills.

Recently, Bordas joined Duke English major Trisha Santanam, '26, for a brief interview:

The William M. Blackburn Endowment sponsors the Blackburn Artist-in-Residence program, which enables Duke English to invite distinguished writers to teach courses in creative writing, allowing our students to benefit from the instruction of these authors with national or international reputations. They reside at Duke for one or two semesters and teach one or two courses per semester.