UT’s Writers in the Library begins the fall semester with a flourish! Bobbie Ann Mason will lead off the visiting writers series with a reading on Wednesday, September 12, at 7:30 p.m. in the John C. Hodges Library auditorium on the University of Tennessee, Knoxville campus. The event is free and open to the public.

Bobbie Ann Mason is the author of five short story collections, five novels, a memoir, and three works of nonfiction. Her first book of fiction, Shiloh & Other Stories (1982), won the PEN/ Hemingway Award and was nominated for the American Book Award, the PEN/ Faulkner Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her memoir, Clear Springs, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Mason has also received an Arts and Letters Award for Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The New York Times has praised Mason’s books for having “delineated a New South reeling from the dislocations of contemporary life” and for her “radar-sharp knowledge of her characters’ inner lives, [and] her interest in the longings for emotional connection.”

Mason’s most recent book, the novel The Girl in the Blue Beret, was one of last summer’s three “hot literary books” recommended by USA Today.

Writers in the Library is sponsored by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville Libraries and the UT Creative Writing Program in association with the John C. Hodges Better English Fund. For further information contact Marilyn Kallet, Director, UT Creative Writing Program (mkallet@utk.edu), or Christopher Hebert, Writer-in-Residence, UT Libraries (chebert3@utk.edu).