PITTSBURGH CONTEMPORARY WRITERS SERIES AT PITT BEGINS ITS SPRING SEASON FEB. 7 WITH NOVELIST JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS

January 28, 2002

PITTSBURGH—Novelist Jayne Anne Phillips will begin the Spring 2002 season of the University of Pittsburgh Writing Program's Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series by giving a free reading at 8:15 p.m. Feb. 7 in the Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Room 125, Schenley Drive, Oakland.

Phillips' first novel, "Machine Dreams," (1984) was a national best seller nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and cited by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 12 best books of the year. Phillips also is the author of "MotherKind," (2000) her most recent novel, and "Shelter," (1994) for which she received the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In addition, she won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction for "Black Tickets," her first collection of short stories.

Phillips is a writer in residence at Brandeis University. Her writing, which has been published in 12 foreign languages, has most recently appeared in Granta, DoubleTake, and "The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction." She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Bunting Fellowship.

Other featured writers scheduled to give free readings this semester are Rick Bass, Feb. 26; Alice Notley, March 21; and Wanda Coleman, April 4.

The Contemporary Writers Series is cosponsored by the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place and Pitt's East Asian Studies, The Book Center, Environmental Studies, Environmental Committee of the Student Government Board, and Western Pennsylvania Writing Project.

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