Poet and Novelist Dionne Brand to Speak at Pitt Oct. 20

PITTSBURGH—Dionne Brand, a poet and novelist, will give an evening reading at the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland campus as part of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series at 8:30 p.m. Oct. 20 in Room 125, Frick Fine Arts Auditorium, Schenley Drive. This event is free and open to the public.

Author of four books, Brand has contributed to myriad journals and papers and is a founding member and editor of Our Lives, Canada's first Black women's newspaper. Her books include In Another Place, Not Here (Knopf Canada, 1996), Land to Light On (McClelland & Stewart, distributed by Canbook, 1997), No Language is Neutral (Coach House, 1990), and Thirsty (McClelland & Stewart, 2002). She received the 1997 Governor General's Award for Poetry and the 1997 Trillium Award for Poetry for Land to Light On.

Born in 1953 in Guayguayare, Trinidad, Brand moved to San Fernando at the age of four and spent her youth in California. She earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in English and philosophy at the University of Toronto in 1975 and the Master of Arts degree in the philosophy of education in 1989 at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

The Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series, which runs from Sept. 15 to April 7 (2005), is cosponsored by the Wyndham Garden Hotel-University Place, Pitt's Center for Latin American Studies, University Center for International Studies, The Book Center, and the University of Pittsburgh Press.

For more information, visit www.english.pitt.edu/events/pcws_schedule.html.

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10/14/04/tmw