September 8, 2025 | 7 pm @ University of Tennessee
The UT Creative Writing Program presents a reading by two of its alums in celebration of their debut short story collections. Samantha Edmonds ("A Preponderance of Starry Beings") and Mariah Rigg ("Extinction Capital of the World") read from their work Monday, Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. in the Lindsay Young Auditorium of John C. Hodges Library on the UT campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Edmonds is the author of the story collection "A Preponderance of Starry Beings" (Triquarterly, 2025)as well as the chapbooks "Pretty to Think So"and "The Space Poet." Her works have appeared inThe New York Times, Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, Michigan Quarterly Review, Mississippi Review, Creative Nonfiction,andMcSweeney's InternetTendency,among others. She's an assistant professor in the creative writing program at Berry College and lives in Rome, Georgia. She received her MFA from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Rigg is a Samoan-Haole who was born and raised on the island of O‘ahu. She is the author of the short story collection "Extinction Capital of the World" (Ecco, 2025). Her chapbook, "All Hat, No Cattle," was published by Bull City Press in 2023. Riggis the recipient of fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, MASS MoCA, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Lambda Literary, among others. Her work has been featured inThe Sewanee Review,Oxford American,Electric Lit,Chicago Review of Books, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA from the University of Oregon and a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Category: Literature