ZZ Packer is the author of the short story collection, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere - a PEN/Faulkner finalist and a New York Times Notable Book. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, Story, Ploughshares, Zoetrope and The Best American Short Stories 2000 and 2004, and have been read on NPR's Selected Shorts. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and was recently named one of America's Young Innovators by Smithsonian Magazine, as well as one of America's Best Young Novelists by Granta.

UMMA is pleased to be the site for the Department of English Program in Creative Writing Zell Visiting Writers Series, which brings outstanding writers each semester. The Series is made possible through a generous gift from UM alumna Helen Zell ('64). For more information, please see www.lsa.umich.edu/english/grad/mfa/mfaeve.asp