Hollins Creative Writing Alumni Virtual Reading featuring Jen Fawkes M.F.A. '10 and Karen Salyer McElmurray M.A. '89

Fawkes’ debut story collection, Mannequin and Wife , is just out (in September 2020) from LSU Press. A second story collection, Tales the Devil Told Me , won the 2020 Press 53 Award for Short Fiction and is forthcoming in May 2021. She has published fiction in One Story, Crazyhorse, The Iowa Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Best Small Fictions 2020 , and elsewhere. A four-time nominee for the Pushcart Prize, Fawkes’ stories have garnered awards from The Pinch, Washington Square Review, Harpur Palate, Salamander , and others. Fawkes holds an M.F.A. in creative writing from Hollins and a Ph.D. in English literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. She is currently an assistant professor of English and creative writing at West Liberty University in West Virginia. McElmurray’s memoir, Surrendered Child , won the AWP Award Series for Creative Nonfiction and was listed as a “notable book” by the National Book Critics Circle. She is also the author of Motel of the Stars , an Editor’s Pick from Oxford American and a Lit Life Book of the Year; Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven , a novel that won the Lillie Chaffin Award for Appalachian Writing; Walk Till the Dogs Get Mean , co-edited with Adrian Blevins M.A. '90; and, most recently, the novel Wanting Radiance . Her essays have won the Annie Dillard Prize, the New Southerner Prize, and the Orison Magazine Anthology Award, and have several times been Notable in Best American Essays . McElmurray has an M.F.A. in fiction writing from the University of Virginia, an M.A. in creative writing from Hollins, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. Funding provided by the Dee Hull Everist Visiting Speakers Fund. To connect to the event – For those outside of Hollins University: by 3 pm EST the day of the event, email the event name, your name, phone number, and, if different, the name on your Zoom account to creative.writing@hollins.edu . For Hollins University students, faculty, and staff: see my.hollins.