The memorial Rebecca Mitchell Tarumoto Short Fiction Prize is sponsored by the family of Rebecca Mitchell Tarumoto to honor her devotion to the art of writing fiction, to expand the audience for outstanding short stories, and to encourage literary excellence among writers early in their careers. $2,000 will be awarded annually to the best work of short fiction published by the journal in a given calendar year, with a particular emphasis on work by an emerging or previously unpublished writer.

The 2012 winner will be announced shortly.

Ron Carlson’s most recent book is the novel The Signal from Viking. His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Harpers, The New Yorker, and other journals, as well as The Best American Short Stories, The O'Henry Prize Series, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction and other anthologies. Ron Carlson Writes a Story, his book on writing is taught widely. He has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, the Cohen Prize at Ploughshares, the McGinnis Award at the Iowa Review, the Aspen Literary Award, and his novel Five Skies was One Book Rhode Island in 2009. He is Director of the Graduate Program in Fiction at the University of California, Irvine.

This event is free and open to the public.

The VCU 2011-12 Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by the Department of English of the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences and the Graduate Writers' Association, with additional funding made possible through the generosity of James Branch Cabell Library Associates, Friends of the Library, the VCU Libraries, the VCU Honors College, Barnes & Noble @ VCU Bookstore, and the family of Larry Levis.

For more information please visit www.has.vcu.edu/eng/graduate/mfa/visiting_writers.htm.