To kick off the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series in the spring, Penn State Assistant Professor of Fiction, Samuel Kọ́láwọlé, visited an advanced fiction class taught by Assistant Teaching Professor Ellen Skirvin. Students asked him questions about his short stories “The Tyrant” and “Adjustment of Status”, and Professor Kọ́láwọlé talked about how he focuses on morally ambiguous characters and wants to leave the reader with difficult questions. During his formal reading in the Foster Auditorium of the Paterno Library, he read excerpts from his novel The Road to the Salt Sea, which was published last summer, and discussed his process and considerations when writing it, including how the “personal is always political.” Since his reading, his novel won the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the International Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize, and became a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel.
In February, the English department welcomed critically acclaimed author Kelly McMasters as its 2025 Fisher Family Writer-in-Residence. During her week-long visit, McMasters met with students in the BA/MA program for workshops on craft and attended Professor Toby Thompson’s graduate workshop in creative nonfiction. She spoke to the importance of “making friends with one’s ghosts” through writing, and the complexities of sharing what is vulnerable and painful on the page. During a public reading later in the week, she read excerpts from her memoir The Leaving Season and discussed her journey as a writer, including the impact of becoming an English major in her undergraduate years. Steven Fisher, who began the annual Fisher Family visiting writer series with his family 30 years ago, also joined the events and met with McMasters and BA/MA students to discuss all things creative writing.
Distinguished poet and essayist Adrienne Su visited campus as part of the Mary E. Rolling Reading Series in March. During her visit, she attended a Q&A session with the graduate poetry class taught by Liberal Arts Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing program Julia Spicher-Kasdorf. Su spoke about the tension between resisting the inclination to idealize the past in writing and the drive to capture the nostalgia for everyday things like shopping malls and family recipes before they disappeared. Later, she read from her collection Peach State to a packed crowd in the Foster Auditorium.
The final Mary E. Rolling Series event welcomed nationally renowned fiction writer Jamil Jan Kochai, who met with Visiting Assistant Professor in fiction Ali Araghi’s advanced fiction class for a Q&A. Kochai discussed how he often uses humor as a technique to encourage readers to rethink their political reality. While his stories include many characters, he said that he likes to give each character a breath of life and a chance to shine. During his public reading, he captivated the audience by reading the short story “Hungry Ricky Daddy” from his award-winning collection The Haunting of Hajji Hotak.
We are so thankful for the writers who visited us this year and for the continued support from the Fisher Family, the Mary E. Rolling Endowment, the Joseph L. Grucci Poetry Endowment, the University Libraries, and the College of the Liberal Arts.
Please check out our lineup for next academic year’s visiting writers and mark your calendars!
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