ALT Graphic reading: "VCU Cabell First Novelist Award Open for Submissions: Send us your debuts. Deadline to submit: Dec 30th."

ALT "A graphic reading: How a Cabell Winner is Chosen 1: All entries are read by VCU MFA students, faculty, & community readers 2: Book reviews are tallied to generate the top 20 longlist 3: MFA students narrow the longlist to a top 10 shortlist and then 3 finalists 4: MFA students & the Cabell Committee determine the winner, with the previous year's winner acting as a tie breaker 5: The winner is announced!"

ALT A hand holds up a copy of IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT'S OVER by Anne de Markcen in front of a tree at sunset, below the words "Award Night Tomorrow!"

ALT A screenshot of the homepage of Blackbird: an online journal of literature and the arts.

ALT Graphic reading: 24th Cabell First Novelist Award: Award Night. with Anne de Marcken, author of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over, and Barbara Epler, Editor and President of New Directions Publishing. Featuring a reading, moderated discussion, audience Q&A, and book signing. 7-9 PM Wednesday, Nov 5th, James Branch Cabell Library Lecture Hall, Room 303. Headshots of Anne de Marcken and Barbara Epler float next to the cover of the winning novel.

ALT A hand holds up IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT'S OVER by Anne de Marcken up against a wall of ivy. Surrounding the book are arrows pointing to the words Zombies, Loss, Grief, Humor, Memory, and Time.

ALT Graphic reading: Book Signing with Anne de Marcken, author of It Lasts Forever and Then It's Over. Meet the winner of the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award and the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction! 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM, Wednesday, November 5th, Shelf Life Books. A headshot of de Marcken appears next to the cover of her novel.

ALT The cover of What a Time to Be Alive by Jade Chang.

ALT Quote from the 2024 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction Panel: “It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over is a work of quietly detonative imagination. Written in the guise of a zombie novel, it quickly reveals itself to be a deeply felt meditation on the many afterlives of memory, the strange disorienting space where our pasts go to disintegrate."

ALT A paperback copy of BLOOMLAND by John Englehardt sits on a wooden table next to a bouquet of flowers.

ALT Graphic reading: VCU Creative Writing Presents MOVEABLE FEAST: 6 PM Oct. 10th, 2025, MCALC Room 3100.

ALT Quote reading "I lost my left arm today. It came off clean at the shoulder." — Anne de Marcken, It Lasts Forever and Then It's over

ALT The cover of the novel The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy.

ALT Headshot of Barbara Epler.

ALT Weijia Pan reads from his collection at a podium on a stage. Behind him, a large screen reads: MOTHERLANDS: poems, Weijia Pan, Levis Reading Prize Night.