PITT'S PITTSBURGH CONTEMPORARY WRITERS SERIES TO FEATURE PULITZER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR JOHN McPHEE

PITTSBURGH, March 2 -- John McPhee, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for general non-fiction for "Annals of the Former World," will be the featured speaker at the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series on Tuesday, March 20, at 8:15 p.m., in the University of Pittsburgh's David Lawrence Hall, Room 120, Oakland.

McPhee began his writing career at Time magazine and later joined the New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. That same year, he published his first book, "A Sense of Where You Are." His other books include "The Headmaster," "Oranges," "The Pine Barrens," "A Roomful of Hovings and Other Profiles," "The Crofter and the Laird," "Levels of the Game," "Encounters with the Archdruid," "The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed," "The Curve of Binding Energy," "Pieces of the Frame," and "The Survival of the Bark Canoe."

Both "Encounters with the Archdruid" and "The Curve of Binding Energy," were nominated for National Book Awards in the category of science. In 1977, McPhee received the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Two other books, "The John McPhee Reader" and the best-selling "Coming into the Country," were published that same year. A prolific writer, McPhee also wrote "Giving Good Weight," "Basin and Range," "In Suspect Terrain," "La Place de la Concorde Suisse," "Table of Contents," "Rising from the Plains," "Heirs of General Practice," "The Control of Nature," "Looking for a Ship," "Assembling California," "The Ransom of Russian Art," "The Second John McPhee Reader," and "Irons in the Fire."

McPhee, who was born in Princeton, New Jersey, now lives there and teaches writing at Princeton University. He was educated at Princeton University and Cambridge University.

The Contemporary Writers Series is co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost, the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place, The Book Center, Western Pennsylvania Writing Project, Department of Africana Studies, The Women's Studies Program, Center for Latin American Studies, East Asian Studies, University of Pittsburgh Press, Creative Nonfiction, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures, and the Honors College.

The series is free and open to the public. For more information, call

412-624-6506.

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