George Mason University’s Creative Writing Program joins Watershed Lit and Mason’s University Libraries in presenting the Fall 2025 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.
These evening events are generally at 7:30 p.m. in the Fenwick Library Main Reading Room, except as noted below.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25: ROBIN HEMLEY (NONFICTION)
7:30 p.m. — Instruction Rooms 1014 A & B, Fenwick Library
Robin Hemley has published sixteen books of fiction and nonfiction. His most recent books are the autofiction, Oblivion, An After-Autobiography (Gold Wake, 2022), The Art and Craft of Asian Stories: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology, co-authored with Xu Xi (Bloomsbury, 2021) and Borderline Citizen: Dispatches from the Outskirts of Nationhood (Nebraska, 2020, Penguin SE Asia, 2021). His new collection of essays is How to Change History: A Salvage Project (Nebraska, March, 2025). His work has been published and translated widely and he has received such awards as a Guggenheim Fellowship, a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, three Pushcart Prizes in both nonfiction and fiction, The Nelson Algren Award for Fiction, The Independent Press Book Award for Memoir, among others. He is the Founder of the international nonfiction conference, NonfictioNOW and was the director of the Nonfiction Writing Program at The University of Iowa for nine years, inaugural director of The Writers’ Centre at Yale-NUS, Singapore, and is a graduate of The Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He is co-editor with Leila Philip of Speculative Nonfiction. He has delivered readings, workshops, and lectures around the world and is a Professor Emeritus at The University of Iowa. The Digital Storytelling Lab at The University of Iowa was recently dedicated in his honor.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 2: ROSANNA WARREN (POETRY)
7:30 p.m. — Main Reading Room, Fenwick Library
Rosanna Warren taught in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago from 2012 to 2023 (now Emerita). Her book of criticism, Fables of the Self: Studies in Lyric Poetry, came out in 2008. Her most recent books of poems are Hindsight (2025), So Forth (2020), Ghost in a Red Hat (2011), and Departure (2003). Her biography of Max Jacob, Max Jacob: A Life in Art and Letters, was published in October 2020. She is the recipient of awards from the Academy of American Poets, The American Academy of Arts & Letters, the Lila Wallace Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the New England Poetry Club, among others. She was a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1999 to 2005, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. Her poems have been included in twelve editions of Best American Poetry and three Pushcart Prize volumes.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 9: ESTHER IFESINACHI OKONKWO (FICTION) AND JEFF WEISS (NONFICTION)
In conjunction with Fall for the Book
6 p.m. — Main Reading Room, Fenwick Library
Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Her debut novel The Tiny Things are Heavier was a Vogue 2025 Best Books. She received an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD from Florida State University. She’s a recipient of a 2021 Elizabeth George Foundation Grant. Home for her is Lagos, Nigeria. She lives in Detroit, Michigan.
Jeff Weiss is the author of the new book Waiting for Brittney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly. He’s a music writer and cultural critic whose work has appeared in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, The FADER, and many other outlets. A former columnist for LA Weekly, he is the cofounder of The LAnd magazine and the founder of the pioneering hip-hop blog Passion of the Weiss, along with its record label, POW Recordings. He lives in Los Angeles.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6: GABRIELLE CALVOCORESSI (POETRY)
7:30 p.m. — Main Reading Room, Fenwick Library
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University; a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer's Award; a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, TX; the Bernard F. Conners Prize from The Paris Review; and a residency from the Civitella di Ranieri Foundation, among others. Calvocoressi's poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled The Year I Didn't Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi was the Beatrice Shepherd Blane Fellow at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute for 2022 - 2023. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice. Their new collection of poetry, The New Economy, will be released from Copper Canyon in 2025.
June 20, 2025