University of Pittsburgh
August 22, 2005

Award-Winning Authors and Poets Highlight 2005-2006 Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series at Pitt

Season begins Oct. 19 with Charles Baxter, winner of Award in Literature, and Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, adapted for the Academy Award-winning film, to appear Nov. 10
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PITTSBURGH-Lovers of literature and poetry can "curl up" with a good author during the eighth season of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series 2005-2006 at the University of Pittsburgh, featuring award-winning authors and poets. The season opens Oct. 19 with author Charles Baxter, winner of an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Prix St. Valentine in France, and the Book of the Year Award from the Catalan Booksellers' Association in Spain.

All readings begin at 8:30 p.m. and are held in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125, except the Nov. 2 Drue Heinz Literature Prize Reading, which starts at 7:30 p.m., and the Nov. 10 Michael Ondaatje appearance, which will be held in David Lawrence Auditorium.

A complete season listing follows.

Oct. 19 Charles Baxter

Author, Saul and Patsy (Pantheon, September 2003), The Feast of Love

(Vintage, 2000), Believers (Vintage, 1997), Burning Down the House

(Graywolf, 1997), and Shadow Play (W.W. Norton, 1993)

8:30 p.m., Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

Nov. 2 Drue Heinz Literature Prize Reading

Stewart O'Nan, 2005 judge and 1993 Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner

for In the Walled City (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993). Author of

A Prayer for the Dying (Henry Holt and Co., 1999), The Speed Queen

(Doubleday, 1997), The Good Wife (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005),

Snow Angels (Picador, 1994), and A World Away (Henry Holt, 1998)

David Harris Ebenbach, 2005 Drue Heinz Literature Prize winner

for Between Camelots (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005)

7:30 p.m., Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

Nov. 10 Michael Ondaatje

The 2005 William Block Sr. Writer; author of The English Patient (Alfred

A. Knopf, 1992), Anil's Ghost (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), Coming Through

Slaughter (Anansi, 1976), The Cinnamon Peeler, (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991),

and Running in the Family (W. W. Norton, 1984)

8:30 p.m., David Lawrence Auditorium

Feb. 8 David Berman

Poet, Actual Air (Open City Books, 1999)

8:30 p.m., Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

Mar. 27 Anne Carson

Poet, The Beauty of the Husband (Vintage, 2001), Autobiography of Red (Alfred A. Knopf, 1998), Plainwater (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996), Men in the Off Hours (Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), Eros the Bittersweet (Dalkey Archive Press, 1998), and If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002)

8:30 p.m., Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

April 5 Natasha Tretheway

Poet, Domestic Work (Graywolf, 2000), Bellocq's Ophelia (Graywolf,

2002)

8:30 p.m., Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125

For more information, call 412-624-6505 or visit www.english.pitt.edu.

The Contemporary Writers Series is cosponsored by the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place and the University of Pittsburgh's Book Center, Department of Classics, University of Pittsburgh Press, and Creative Nonfiction Program.

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