Ben Marcus will read and sign his books Feb. 28.
Innovative fiction writer Ben Marcus will read from his works and visit with University of Wyoming students Monday, Feb. 28, as part of UW's MFA Program in Creative Writing Visiting Writers Series.
Considered one of the most original voices in American fiction, Marcus will read and sign books at 7 p.m., at Second Story Books, located at 105 Ivinson St. He also will lead a creative writing fiction workshop at noon the same day for MFA Program students.
"The MFA graduate creative writing program serves to mentor a new generation of writers. Each semester the MFA program's Visiting Writers Series brings distinguished writers and emerging new voices to Wyoming," Program Director Beth Loffreda says. "We are fortunate and delighted to add Ben Marcus to our list of recent guests."
Marcus has written three books of fiction -- "Notable American Women," "The Father Costume" and "The Age of Wire and String." His stories, essays and reviews have appeared in such publications as Harper's, The Paris Review, The Believer, The New York Times, Salon, McSweeney's, Time, Conjunctions, Nerve, Black Clock and The Village Voice.
He is the editor of "The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories," and for several years was the fiction editor of Fence. A recent guest fiction editor for Guernica magazine, Marcus in 2009 received a grant for Innovative literature from the Creative Capital Foundation.
Marcus received the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award in 2008 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has also received a Whiting Writers Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in fiction, three Pushcart Prizes and a fiction fellowship from the Howard Foundation of Brown University, where he taught for several years before joining the faculty at Columbia University's School of the Arts. His new novel, "The Flame Alphabet," will be published next year.
For more information, visit the MFA website at www.uwyo.edu/creativewriting or e-mail Gwynn Lemler at cw@uwyo.edu.
