Organized by the Helen Zell Writers' Program and presented in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art, the Mark Webster Reading Series showcases the work of second-year MFA students in fiction and poetry.

Friends, family, and members of the Ann Arbor community are welcome to attend the readings both in-person (in Stern Auditorium at the University of Michigan Museum of Art) or synchronously on Zoom. 

Noor Al-Samarrai is the author of El Cerrito (Inside the Castle, 2018), winner of a 2019 Arab American Book Awards honorable mention and named “about the best piece of literature I have read in a long time” by late poet and filmmaker Jonas Mekas. She writes about the confluence of place and memory.

Hank Hietala grew up in Montana. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Salt Hill, Ruminate, Stonecoast Review, Rain Taxi, and Cleveland Review of Books.

Hayley Boyd is a Hopwood award winning author from Portland, Oregon.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         This series is free and open to the public. For questions, accommodation needs, or the password, please contact co-hosts, Rebecca Hawkes (hawkes@umich.edu) and Malia Maxwell (maliacm@umich.edu)