Ļć½¶Ö±²„faculty memberās award-winning book available at Aug. 11 launch event
Contact: Sarah Nicholas
STARKVILLE, Miss.āĻć½¶Ö±²„ Professor of English Becky Hagenston is offering signed copies of āThe Age of Discovery and Other Storiesā at the bookās official launch Wednesday [Aug. 11] at Munson and Brothers Trading Post in Columbus.
Hosted by Friendly City Books, the 5:30 p.m. event includes a featured reading by Hagenston, a 2020 Pushcart Prize winner. She also will sign copies of her new book, published this year by The Ohio State University Press/Mad Creek Books.
The Journal, Ohio Stateās award-winning literary magazine, awarded āThe Age of Discovery and Other Storiesā itsĀ Non/Fiction Collection Prize, presented annually to a book-length collection of short stories, essays, or a combination of the two.
The Ohio State University Press said Hagenstonās book creates a space where āthe real and the fantastic collide in stories that span from Mississippi to Europe, and from the recent past to the near future. In these stories, men and women confront grief, danger, loneliness and sometimesāthe strangest discovery of allāunexpected joy.ā
āI didnāt know where any of these stories were headed when I started them, and they ended up in some pretty weird places that involve robots, witches and magical sourdough,ā Hagenston said. āThatās what I love most about writing storiesāseeing where they take me.ā
An Ļć½¶Ö±²„faculty member since 2001, Hagenston won the 2020 Pushcart Prize for her 2018 short story āHi Ho Cherry-O.ā She also has authored three award-winning story collectionsāāScavengers,ā Permafrost Book Prize; āStrange Weather,ā Spokane Prize in Short Fiction; and āA Gram of Mars,ā Sarabande Booksā Mary McCarthy Prize.
Hagenston is the recipient of two O. Henry Awards, the Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award, the Reynolds Price Award in Short Fiction, and the Julia Peterkin Award.
Her work is published in journals including the Oxford American, New England Review, Southern Review and Gettysburg Review.
A Maryland native, Hagenston earned a bachelorās degree from Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania, Master of Fine Arts from the University of Arizona and masterās from New Mexico State University.
Part of MSUās College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English is online at .
Ļć½¶Ö±²„is Mississippiās leading university, available online atĀ .Ģż