STAFF REPORT

Writers and poets in Texas State University’s Master’s of Fine Arts Creative Writing program will read their work in San Marcos on Tuesday, Feb. 14.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be in the Southwestern Writers Room on the seventh floor of the Alkek Library at 5 p.m. The reading room is in the Wittliff Collections, which houses exhibits featuring the literary archives of icons including Cormac McCarthy, J. Frank Dobie and Katherine Anne Porter.

Texas State MFA creative writing students are taught and mentored by nationally-recognized individuals who comprise the program’s faculty and adjunct thesis faculty. Tim O’Brien, winner of the National Book Award, holds the position of endowed chair. Previous chairs include National Book Award winner Li-Young Lee, Pulitzer Prize finalist Barry Hannah, and National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Denis Johnson.

The creative writing program enrolls about 60 students per year, 80 percent of whom are from out-of-state. MFA students run literary journal Front Porch. The journal includes an online video archive of readings by noted authors and poets.

The director of the university’s MFA program is Tom Grimes, who was recently nominated as a finalist for the 2011 PEN Center USA Creative Nonfiction Award for his book “Mentor: A Memoir.”