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, 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 Main Reading Room, 2001 Fenwick, on Mason’s Fairfax Campus.