Pitt Hosts Poet Ellen Bass for Reading Feb 6

PITTSBURGH-Poet Ellen Bass will give a reading at 8:30 p.m. in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, 650 Schenley Dr., Oakland. This event is part of the 2007-08 Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series season.

Bass's poetry has appeared in hundreds of journals and anthologies, including "The Atlantic Monthly," "Ms.", "The American Poetry Review," "The Kenyon Review," "Ploughshares," and "Field." She was awarded the Ellison Book Award for Poetry from the University of Cincinnati, the Nimrod/Hardmans Pablo Neruda Prize, "The Missouri Reviews'" Larry Levis Award, the Greensboro Poetry Prize, the New Letters Poetry Prize, The Chautauqua Poetry Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and a Fellowship from the California Arts Council.

Her nonfiction books include "Free Your Mind: The Book for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Youth" (HarperCollins, 1996) and "I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse" (Harper Collins, 1988), which sold more than a million copies and has been translated into 10 languages.

Bass has taught poetry and creative writing in Santa Cruz, Calif., and other locations nationally and internationally, since 1974. Her fourth book of poems, "The Human Line" (Copper Canyon Press, 2007), was published in June 2007.

The Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, which runs through April 2, is cosponsored by Pitt's Book Center, Women's Studies Program, and the University of Pittsburgh Press. All events in the Writers Series are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Jeff Oaks at oaks@pitt.edu.

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