The reading is free and open to the public and takes place in Hurst Lounge in Duncker Hall.

Charles Baxter

Baxter is the author of three novels, most recently The Feast of Love (2000); and four collections of short fiction, including A Relative Stranger (1991) and Believers (1998).

He has published a book of essays on the craft of fiction, Burning Down the House (1997), as well as three collections of poetry. He has also edited three anthologies of fiction and of essays.

Baxter's work has earned wide acclaim. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace Reader's Digest Fund. His work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories five times.

Since 1989, he has taught English and creative writing at the University of Michigan, where until recently he served as director of the master of fine arts program.

"In his fiction, Charles Baxter examines the subtle but nevertheless seismic reverberations issuing from the unpredictable tectonics of everyday life," said Kellie Wells, assistant professor of English in Arts & Sciences. "His characters stumble and grope, seek shelter, often blinded by some small illumination that, like the fierce grace granted the characters in Flannery O'Connor's stories, they might rather live without.

"Baxter writes fiction filled with incisive observations that reveal the poignancy of quiet lives and rendered in lapidary prose whose shimmer you only notice after you reach the last word."

Copies of Baxter's works will be available for purchase, and a book-signing will follow the reading.

For more information, call 935-7130.