Contact: Georgia Clarke

STARKVILLE, Miss.—A nationally recognized member of Mississippi State’s English faculty shares excerpts this month from her newest award-winning short story collection.

During a free March 23 university program, associate professor Becky Hagenston will read from “Scavengers,” recipient of the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ 2016 Permafrost Book Prize in Fiction.

To begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Colvard Student Union’s third-floor Fowlkes Auditorium, the event is sponsored by the MSU English department and its creative writing program.

In addition to writing and teaching, Hagenston serves as adviser to Jabberwock Review, the department’s literary journal.

A 232-page release of the University of Alaska Press, “Scavengers” is her third short-story collection. It follows lives of characters who, when faced with a choice, must decide whether to make sense of the situation—or run. For more, visit www.alaska.edu/uapress/browse/detail/index.xml?id=533.

“Strange Weather” (Press 53), winner of the 2009 Spokane Prize, and “A Gram of Mars” (Sarabande Books), the 1997 Mary McCarthy Prize selection, are her previous collections.

Hagenston also has been chosen twice for the national O. Henry Award. Her other honors include the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, Julia Peterkin Award and Reynolds Price Short Fiction Prize.

In addition to selection for a residency at Yaddo, an artists’ community in New York state, she has received scholarships from Bread Loaf, Sewanee and the Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Hagenston holds graduate degrees from New Mexico State University and University of Arizona. For more, visit www.beckyhagenston.com.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.