We have a wonderful series planned
for the coming semester.
Readings will include visits by Grace Paley, CK Williams,
Charles Simic, Sharon Olds, Tomas Tranströmer from Sweden,
Lynn Luria Sukenick who will be here as a visiting professor,
and three student readings.
If you are not on the mailing list
and would like to receive announcements,
please see me after the reading and give me your address.
Writers at Work has one more reading schedule
for this semester, two weeks from tonight.
Rod Kessler, former University student,
now teaching in Salem, Massachusetts,
will be reading from his fiction with MFA candidate David
Wallace.
And that reading is at the terrace lounge
in the Student Union.
Poetry Center is administering a contest
for the Academy of American Poets, Student Union Activities
Board, and in memory of Margaret Sterling.
The refreshment table tonight, we have contest rules and entry
blanks.
This contest is for students only.
Poetry Center is 25 years old this month.
And to celebrate, we have published a small book
which is a history of the Center and description
of the activities and anthology of poems.
I just happen to have some of these available for sale
for $3.
Also, the Poetry Center has a new brochure,
a descriptive brochure and an invitation
to become a friend of the Center.
And I'll have some of these brochures
out on the table tonight.
I hope you can stay afterwards and have some punch and cookies
and meet Diane Ackerman.
This is a very special lady who's come to us today.
She does everything.
She's currently dividing her time
between two cities, Ithaca, New York, where
she has her regular home, and St. Louis where
she's the director of the creative writing
program at the University of Washington.
You know that she's a poet.
I'll read you the titles of her books of poetry, some of which
will be on sale tonight.
The Planets: a Cosmic Pastoral, Wife of Light,
and Lady Faustus, all published by Morrow.
She's written a prose memoir called Twilight
of the Tenderfoot about a year spent working
in New Mexico as a ranch hand.
Not on a dude ranch, but a working ranch.
She's a licensed pilot.
Her newest book is called On Extended Wings,
and is about the experience of flying.
In addition to these books, she also
writes articles and essays.
Her work appears frequently in places like The New York
Times, Parade Magazine.
It's a very great pleasure to introduce you
to Diane Ackerman.
[APPLAUSE]