Award-winning short story writer Stephanie Powell Watts will read her work at 7 p.m. Dec. 12 in Gallery 210 at UMSL.

Fresh off of winning what The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) called the biggest literary prize for African Americans, acclaimed writer Stephanie Powell Watts will visit the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

She won the Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence for her debut story collection, “We Are Taking Only What We Need.” A reading by Watts will begin at 7 p.m. Dec. 12 in Gallery 210 at UMSL. The event is free and open to the public, and books will be available for purchase.

Watts’ collection of 11 stories chronicles the rural lives of African Americans in her native North Carolina. The book received further acclaim from Publisher’s Weekly and was named a finalist for the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Work from the collection also won a 2007 Pushcart Prize, appeared in the prestigious “New Stories from the South: Best of the Year” anthology and was published in notable journals, including the Oxford American.

The MFA in Creative Writing Program, The Center for the Humanities “Poetry & Short Story Reading Series” and The Graduate Writers Association are sponsoring Watts’ UMSL appearance.