George Mason University’s Creative Writing Program joins Watershed Lit and Mason’s University Libraries in presenting the Spring 2024 Visiting Writers Series.
Writers will meet for afternoon workshops with students from Mason’s MFA program in creative writing and will then participate in programs that same evening—open to the public, with readings and conversations hosted by Mason’s creative writing community.
All evening programs will begin at 7:30 p.m.—in person in the Fenwick Library Reading Room on Mason’s Fairfax Campus.
Visit creativewriting.gmu.edu for updated information ahead.
SANDRA LIM (POETRY)
Thursday, January 25
Sandra Lim’s latest book of poetry is The Curious Thing (W.W. Norton, 2021). Her previous collections include The Wilderness (W.W. Norton, 2014), winner of the Barnard Women Poets Prize selected by Louise Glück, and Loveliest Grotesque (Kore Press, 2006). She has received the 2023 Jackson Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an American Academy of Arts and Letters Literature Award, and the Levis Reading Prize. Her writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, Poetry, The Baffler, Gulf Coast, The New Republic, and elsewhere. She is a Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and also serves on the poetry faculty in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers. Born in Seoul, Korea, she lives in Cambridge, MA.
MELANIE BROOKS (NONFICTION)
Thursday, March 14
Melanie Brooks is the author of A Hard Silence: One Daughter Remaps Family, Grief, And Faith When HIV/AIDS Changes It All (Vine Leaves Press, 2023) and Writing Hard Stories: Celebrated Memoirists Who Shaped Art from Trauma (Beacon Press, 2017). She teaches professional writing at Northeastern University and narrative medicine in the MFA program at Bay Path University in Massachusetts and creative writing at Nashua Community College in New Hampshire. She earned an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast writing program. Her work has been published in Psychology Today, the HuffPost, Yankee Magazine, the Washington Post, Ms. Magazine, Creative Nonfiction, and other notable publications.
JAMES ALLEN HALL (POETRY)
Thursday, March 28
James Allen Hall (he/they) is the author of three books, including the poetry collections Now You're the Enemy (2008) and Romantic Comedy (2023, selected by Diane Seuss for the Levis Prize), and a book of lyric personal essays, I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well (2017). They have received awards and fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation, the Texas Institute of Letters, the Fellowship of Southern Writers, the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences. With Aaron Smith, James is the co-host of the popular poetry show Breaking Form: A Podcast of Poetry & Culture. They direct the Rose O'Neill Literary House at Washington College, where they also edit the national literary journal Cherry Tree.
MARY KAY ZURAVLEFF (FICTION)
Thursday, April 4
Mary Kay Zuravleff is the award-winning author of American Ending, which was chosen for Oprah’s Spring Reading List. This historical novel was inspired by her Russian Orthodox Old Believer grandparents who lived in the coal-mining town of Marianna, PA. Her third novel Man Alive! was a Washington Post Notable Book, and she is the winner of the American Academy’s Rosenthal Award, the James Jones First Novel Award, and numerous DC Artist Fellowships, including for 2024. She has taught writing workshops all over the country, including graduate workshops at George Mason, Johns Hopkins, and American University. She lives and writes in Washington, DC, where she also coaches writers one-on-one through her business NoveltyDC.
October 26, 2023
