Pitt Presents Poets, Novelists, and Essayists as Part of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series' Sixth Season

PITTSBURGH—The sixth season of the University of Pittsburgh Writing Program's Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series will include an evening series of poetry readings and presentations by three novelists and two essayists. Chuck Palahniuk, author of the best selling novel Fight Club (Henry Holt and Company, 1999), will open the season with a talk and a screening of Fight Club, at 2 p.m. Sept.16 in Alumni Hall Auditorium, in Oakland.

All of the events are free and open to the public. The evening events will take place at 8:30 at various campus locations (listed below). There also will be two afternoon talks.

A complete list of the evening readings and afternoon talks follows.

Sept. 16 Chuck Palahniuk

Author of Fight Club, Choke: A Novel (Anchor Books, 2002), Survivor (Bantam Doubleday Dell Pub, 2000), Invisible Monsters (W. W. Norton and Company, 1999), and Lullaby: A Novel (Anchor Books, 2003)

Talk and screening of Fight Club, 2 p.m. Alumni Hall, 7th Floor Auditorium

Evening Reading, Alumni Hall, 7th Floor Auditorium

Sept. 29 Richard Rodriguez

Essayist, author of Hunger of Memory (Bantam Books, 1983), Brown (Viking Press, 2002), and Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (Viking Press, 1992)

Evening Reading, David Lawrence Auditorium, Room 121

Oct. 13 Joel Brouwer, poet, Exactly What Happened (Purdue University Press, 2000) and Centuries (Four Way Books, 2003)

Anahita Firouz, novelist, In the Walled Gardens (Back Bay Books, 2003)

Mark Rotella, essayist, Stolen Figs and Other Adventures in Calabria (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003)

Evening Reading, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

Nov. 5 2003 Drue Heinz Literature Prize Readings

Rick Moody, 2003 judge and author of The Ice Storm (Back Bay Books, 2003), Purple America (Little Brown and Company, 1998), Demonology (Back Bay Books, 2002), The Black Veil: A Memoir with Regressions (Back Bay Books, 2003), and Garden State (Little Brown and Company, 1997)

Suzanne Greenberg, 2003 prize recipient and novelist, Speed-Walk and Other Stories (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003)

Evening Reading, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

Feb. 11 Tony Earley

Author of Jim the Boy (Little Brown and Company, 2000), Here We Are in Paradise (Little Brown and Company, 1994), Somehow Form a Family: Stories That Are Mostly True (Algonquin Books, 2001)

Evening Reading, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

March 4 Judith Vollmer, poet, Level Green (University of Wisconsin Press, 1990) and The Door Open to the Fire (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 1998)

Joe Weil, poet, In Praise We Enter (Rain Bucket Press, 1998)

Evening Reading, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

April 1 Elizabeth Alexander, poet, Antebellum Dream Book (Graywolf Press, 2001) and Body of Life (Graywolf Press, 1996)

Harryette Mullen, poet, Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California Press, 2003), Muse & Drudge (Singing Horse Press, 1995), and S*PeRM**K*T (Singing Horse Press, 1992)

Marilyn Nelson, poet, The Fields of Praise (Louisiana State University Press, 1997), The Homeplace (Louisiana State University Press, 1990), and Carver: A Life in Poems (Front Street Press, 2001)

Afternoon Talk, African American Women Poets/Remaking Contemporary American Poetry, 3 p.m., Cathedral of Learning, Room 501

Evening Reading, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

The Contemporary Writers Series is cosponsored by the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place, The Book Center, Film Studies Program, Composition Program, and the University of Pittsburgh Press.

###

9/23/03/mgc