Pitt to Host Nonfiction Writer Eula Biss, Founding Editor of Essay Press, for March 22 Reading

PITTSBURGH—Author and essayist Eula Biss will deliver a reading at 8:30 p.m. March 22 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, 650 Schenley Dr., Oakland. The event, free and open to the public, is part of the University of Pittsburgh Writing Program’s 2011-12 Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series.

 

Biss is the author of The Balloonists (Hanging Loose Press, 2002) and Notes From No Man’s Land (Graywolf Press, 2009), which won a National Book Critics Circle Award for literary criticism as well as the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize. Biss’ honors and distinctions also include a 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award for nonfiction/poetry, a Pushcart Prize, a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship for creative arts, and a 2011-12 Howard Foundation Fellowship.

 

Biss’ essays have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals, including the 2009 edition of The Best American Nonrequired Reading (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), the Touchstone Anthology of Contemporary Creative Nonfiction (Simon & Schuster, 2007), Harper’s Magazine, North American Review, and Seneca Review.

 

The founding editor of Essay Press, Biss currently serves as a lecturer in Northwestern University’s Department of English. She earned a BA in nonfiction writing at Hampshire College and an MFA at the University of Iowa.

The 2011-12 Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, which runs through April 5, is cosponsored by Pitt’s Book Center. For more information, call 412-624-6508 or visit www.pghwriterseries.wordpress.com.

 

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