Rion Amilcar Scott Kicks Off Visiting Writer Series

Rion Amilcar Scott Kicks Off Visiting Writer Series

The Creative Writing Program welcomes short story master Rion Amilcar Scott, MFA ’08, as the first visiting writer of its fall series, with a public reading on Thursday, September 19, at 7:30 p.m. Scott’s latest collection, The World Doesn’t Require You, was released in August and earned starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews, with the latter saying, “Mordantly bizarre and trenchantly observant, these stories stake out fresh territory in the nation’s literary landscape.” Scott’s debut collection, Insurrections, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the Hillsdale Award from the Fellowship of Southern Writers.

The Visiting Writer Series, now co-presented with University Libraries, welcomes six writers each semester—two each in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Participating writers meet with MFA students in small afternoon workshops and then present an evening reading, open to the general public. All readings take place in the Fenwick Library Reading Room on Mason’s Fairfax Campus.

The rest of the fall schedule includes: 

  • Journalist, novelist, and now memoirist Bella Pollen, author most recently of Meet Me in the In-Between, an illustrated memoir
    Thursday, October 10, 6 p.m.
  • Poet Cole Swensen, author of 17 collections of poetry, most recently On Walking On
    Thursday, October 10, 7:30 p.m.
  • Novelist R.O. Kwon, author of The Incendiaries, which was named a best book of the year by over forty publications
    Friday, October 11, 5:30 p.m.
  • Poet and translator Rosa Alcalá, whose most recent publications include the collection MyOTHER TONGUE and the translation Cecilia Vicuña: New & Selected Poems
    Thursday, November 7, 7:30 p.m.
  • Essayist Andre Perry, author of the collection Some of Us Are Very Hungry Now, forthcoming in November 2019
    Thursday, November 21, 7:30 p.m.

Visiting Writer Series