The Arkansas International and the U of A Program in Creative Writing & Translation are proud to present a reading by 2023 Distinguished Reader, novelist and short fiction author Ladee Hubbard at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 19, in the Willard and Pat Walker Community Room of the Fayetteville Public Library.

The reading, presented in conjunction with the Fayetteville Public Library TrueLit Festival, is free and open to the public. Copies of Hubbard's novels and short story collection will be available for purchase from Pearl's Books, and Hubbard will sign copies after the reading. Masks are encouraged.

Hubbard is the author of two novels: The Talented Ribkins, which received the 2017 Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Debut Fiction and the 2018 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence, and The Rib King, which was named one of the most important books of 2021 by Time Magazine. The Last Suspicious Holdout, her collection of short stories, was longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize. Her short fiction and nonfiction have been published in The Arkansas International, Oxford American, Guernica, Electric Literature and The New York Times, among other publications, and is forthcoming in the anthology, Best American Mystery and Suspense 2023. She is a recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award, The Berlin Prize, a Radcliffe Institute Fellowship and a Guggenheim Award. She currently lives in New Orleans.

About the Arkansas International: The Arkansas International seeks to put emerging and established authors from across the world in conversation with one another. Launched by the University of Arkansas' Creative Writing & Translation program in 2016, the AI has published fiction, poetry, essays, comics, and works in translation from over 60 countries, including Egypt, Brazil, Venezuela, South Korea, Iran, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Russia, Italy, Galica, and Hungary. The AI also awards the annual C.D. Wright Emerging Poet's Prize and an Emerging Writer's Prize in Fiction, both given to authors who have not yet published full-length works.

The Arkansas International is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit publication committed to supporting writers and translators. Our publication is made possible by grants from the Program in Creative Writing & Translation and the Department of English at the University of Arkansas, the Whiting Foundation, as well as the generous support of individuals.

About the U of A M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing and Translation: For 50 years, the University of Arkansas Program in Creative Writing and Translation has served as a preeminent training ground for some of the nation's best writers. Established in 1966, ours is one of the oldest M.F.A. programs in the nation and one of the most innovative, offering degree tracks in poetry, fiction, and literary translation.

Each semester, our Walton Reading Series brings in established authors who offer a public reading and hold one-on-one conferences with students. Past visitors have included Colum McCann, A.E. Stallings, Khaled Mattawa, Franz Wright, Marian Schwartz, and William Gay. In addition, our Distinguished Readers Series lures true literary luminaries to campus for a public reading and private M.F.A. events: W.S. Merwin, Shahrnush Parsipur, Robert Hass, Joyce Carol Oates, Zadie Smith, and Claudia Rankine, among others.