Mary Louise White Visiting Writers Series to host short-story author Laura van den Berg

Writer Laura van den Berg

SUNY Fredonia will host fiction writer Laura van den Berg to kick off the Spring Mary Louise White Visiting Writer Series, sponsored by the English Department.

The event will take place on Thursday, March 11, beginning with a craft talk on writing at 4 p.m., and continuing with a reading from her collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us, followed by a book signing at 7 p.m.

Both events will take place in McEwen Hall 202 and are free and open to the public. There will also be a pie raffle provided by the Uppercrust Bakehouse.

Ms. van den Berg’s first collection of stories, What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us was published October 2009 and became a Holiday Pick for the Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" Program.

Formerly an assistant editor at Ploughshares, Ms. van den Berg is currently a fiction editor at West Branch and the assistant editor of Memorious, an online journal of new verse and fiction.

Her fiction has or will soon appear in One Story, The Boston Review, The Literary Review, American Short Fiction, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2008, and Best New American Voices 2010, among other publications.

She is the recipient of scholarships from the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers' Conferences, the 2009-2010 Emerging Writer Lectureship at Gettysburg College, the 2009 Julia Peterkin Award, and the 2007 Dzanc Prize. She has taught writing at Emerson College, Grub Street, and in PEN/New England's Freedom to Write Program. Ms. van den Berg earned her master’s of fine art at Emerson College.

For more information about the Visiting Writer Series, contact Alex Duringer.