MERLE COLLINS TO OPEN PITT WRITERS SERIES AND FUSIONS PROGRAM ON AFRICAN LITERATURE

PITTSBURGH, Sept. 14 -- Merle Collins, novelist, poet, short story writer, and essayist, will open the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series season, and a new program devoted to the literature and culture of the African Diaspora, on Wednesday, Sept. 20, at 8:15 p.m., in the University of Pittsburgh's Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Schenley Drive, Oakland.

This is the third season for the Writers Series, presented by Pitt's Writing Program, and the first year for "Fusions: Crossing Languages and Spaces," sponsored by the Department of Africana Studies and the English Department with a grant from the Office of the Provost.

Collins, associate professor of creative writing in the Department of English at the University of Maryland, College Park, is the author of two poetry collections, "Because the Dawn Breaks" and "Rotten Pomerack;" the novels "Angel" and "The Colour of Forgetting;" and a short story collection, "Rain Darling." She also is the co-editor of "Watchers & Seekers: Creative Writing by Black Women in Britain."

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

412-648-7540 or 412-624-6506.

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