Report on the Writing Program
Lynn Emanuel
Mr. William Block Sr. awarded The Writing Program a three-year, $60,000 grant to support the activities of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series. The PCWS has continued in its third full season to bring the University and the city exceptional writers, including non-fiction writer, John McPhee, and leading Latina poet and novelist, Sandra Cisneros. With support from Dr. Jack Daniels, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, the writing and Literature Programs co-hosted a panel of distinguished African-American scholars and writers for a day long event entitled: African-American Writing in the Academy and Other Public Places." Next year, in addition to readings by Richard Ford, Jayne Anne Phillips and Rick Bass, the PCWS will expand its repertoire by sponsoring a series of readings and discussions with leading experimental poets and novelists.
We are pleased to announce that we have hired out colleague and recipient of a Writing Program MFA, Jeff Oaks, to be the Managing Director of the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers' Series. We are also pleased to announce that the Writing Program has hired poet Tony Hoagland. Tony is the author of two books, Sweet Ruin, which received both the Brittingham Prize in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin and Zacharis Award from the Emerson College. His second book, Donkey Gospel, was awarded the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets. In 1999-2000 Tony was awarded the Jenny McKean Moore Fellowship from George Washington University and a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry. He will begin teaching in the English Department fall term, 2001.
Finally, with a grant from the Honors College, a new undergraduate journal, Collision, was launched this spring. Collision, which is run entirely by undergraduate students, is devoted to publishing nonfiction exclusively.