Writers Share Their Talents for Hunger Relief

Contact: Jean Cunningham, (740) 593-4181

Editors: Photos of the four participating faculty can be downloaded from the Web by clicking on their last names at www.ohiou.edu/news/pix/

ATHENS, Ohio (October 27, 2000) -- Four Ohio University faculty will read from their work at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 1, in Irvine Auditorium as part of the annual Writers Harvest, the nation's largest literary benefit.

The national event features readings at more than 600 locations during November to raise money for poverty and hunger relief. Proceeds from the Athens reading will go to Southeastern Ohio Food Bank's Second Harvest, a nine-county food pantry distribution program.

This year's featured faculty members are poet Erin Belieu, assistant professor of English; poet Michael Bugeja, professor of journalism; fiction writer Joan Connor, assistant professor of English; and nonfiction writer David Lazar, associate professor of English.

Belieu, a new faculty member, is the author of two collections of poetry, most recently "One Above and One Below." Her first collection, "Infanta," was selected for the National Poetry Series and chosen as one of the best books of 1995 by the National Book Critics Circle. She currently is editing an anthology of women's poetry, "Extraordinary Tide: New Poetry by American Women," scheduled for publication in spring 2001.

Bugeja, who also serves as special assistant to President Robert Glidden, is the author of several poetry collections, including "Talk" and "Millennium's End." Bugeja has received numerous awards for his poetry, including the Strousse Award from Prairie Schooner, the Hoephner Award from Southern Humanities Review and the Anniversary Award from Associated Writing Programs.

Connor is the author of two collections of short stories. "We Who Live Apart," her most recent collection, was published in August 2000. Her first collection, "Here on Old Route 7," was named a Small Press Editors' Recommended Book. Connor has received numerous Pushcart Nominations, and her work was included in the Best American Short Stories in 1997.

Lazar is an essayist and editor. His prose has received Pushcart nominations from The Denver Quarterly and Southwest Review. His work has appeared in Best American Essays on four occasions and was included in the 10-year anniversary issue of The Prose Poem: An International Journal.

Tickets for the event, sponsored by the Department of English's Creative Writing Program, can be purchased at the door beginning at 7 the night of the reading for a donation of $5. A book signing and reception will follow. For more information, call (740) 593-4181.