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ZZ Packer is Coming to Lincoln!

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln English Department is pleased to welcome fiction writer ZZ Packer as this year’s Writer in Residence from March 6-16. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, Packer was recently named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine as well as one America's Best Young novelists by Granta Magazine. Her story collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, was a PEN/Faulkner finalist and a New York Times Notable Book. According to Professor Judy Slater, Coordinator of UNL’s Creative Writing Program, “We're lucky to have ZZ Packer as our writer in residence this year. Our writer in residence program is a wonderful opportunity for students to meet and spend time with a nationally known writer over a period of two weeks.”

During her stay in Lincoln, Packer will present two free and open-to-the-public events. On Wednesday, March 7, at 12:30 p.m., Packer will give a craft talk entitled “Voice in Fiction” in the Dudley Bailey Library, located in Andrews Hall, UNL City Campus. On Thursday, March 8, at 7:00 p.m., Packer will give a reading in the Great Plains Art Museum (12th & Q Streets), followed by a reception and book signing. In addition to these events, Packer will be conducting a workshop for UNL graduate students and performing outreach work in the Lincoln community. Slater notes, “We have a vibrant regular reading series in which writers come for a day or two, but the writer in residence program is special."

Packer's stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope, and Best American Short Stories 2000 and 2004, and her nonfiction has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post Magazine, The American Prospect, Essence, O, The Believer, and Salon. A contributor to The Huffington Post, Packer has appeared as a commentator on NPR's “Talk of the Nation” and MSNBC. “Her work is fresh, funny, original, and moving,” Slater adds.

According to Professor Kwame Dawes, Editor-in-Chief of Prairie Schooner, “In Packer we have that rare combination of someone who is a genuine literary star and a writer of incredible skill and profound intelligence—she is a writer of substance—a voice we will be hearing from for a long time to come, so it is a real coup to get a writer of that mettle here in Lincoln. Very exciting!”