Visiting Writers & New Leaves, Spring 2018
This spring, Mason’s Creative Writing Program welcomes visiting writers in fiction, nonfiction, and poetry throughout the semester and hosts the annual New Leaves Conference, April 2-6. Mark your calendars now for these great events, and visit creativewriting.gmu.edu for full details and additional events ahead. Note: All events begin at 7:30 p.m., unless otherwise noted.
Okey Ndibe (Visiting Writer, Fiction)
Thursday, February 8, Merten Hall, Room 1203
Ndibe is the author of the novels Foreign Gods, Inc. and Arrows of Rain, and of the memoir, Never Look an American in the Eye: Flying Turtles, Colonial Ghosts, and the Making of a Nigerian American.
Jeannie Vanasco (Visiting Writer, Nonfiction)
Thursday, February 15, George’s, 3rd Floor, Johnson Center
Vanasco is the author of The Glass Eye: A Memoir, featured by Poets & Writers as one of the five best literary nonfiction debuts of 2017 and selected as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Pick, an Indies Introduce Pick, and an Indie Next Pick.
Lisa Russ Spaar (Visiting Writer, Poetry)
Thursday, February 22, George’s, 3rd Floor, Johnson Center
Spaar is the author/editor of over ten books of poetry and criticism, including Monticello in Mind: 50 Contemporary Poems on Jefferson and Orexia: Poems, her fifth full-length poetry collection.
New Leaves Conference
Shane McCrae (Visiting Writer, Poetry)
Monday, April 2, Merten Hall 1202
McCrae is the author of the collections Mule, Blood, The Animal Too Big to Kill, and most recently In the Language of My Captor, a finalist for the National Book Award.
Cutter Wood (Visiting Writer, Nonfiction)
Tuesday, April 3, Research Hall, Room 163
Wood is the author of Love and Death in the Sunshine State: The Story of a Crime (forthcoming). His essays have been published in Harper’s and other magazines.
Madeleine Thien (Visiting Writer, Fiction)
Wednesday, April 4, George’s, 3rd Floor, Johnson Center
Thien is a novelist and short story writer whose books include Certainty, Dogs at the Perimeter, and Do Not Say We Have Nothing, the latter short-listed for the Man Booker Prize among other honors.
Life on the Line: Bullets into Bells
Thursday, April 5, Location TBD
Brian Clements, co-editor of Bullets into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence, joins contributors to the anthology and members of the Mason creative writing community for a reading and discussion; this event is part of the “Life on the Line” series.
Fall for the Book Spring Reading: Chloe Benjamin
Friday, April 6, Grand Tier 3, Concert Hall
Benjamin, author of The Immortalists, inaugurates a new spring reading series hosted by the Fall for the Book festival. Admission for this one event is $10 for the general public, but is free for Friends of Fall for the Book and Mason students with ID.
January 24, 2018