October 10, 2002 SELINSGROVE, (Pa.) -- Jayne Anne Phillips, winner of Best Book of the Year by Publishers Weekly for her novel, Shelter, will give a reading of her work as part of the Visiting Writers Series at Susquehanna University on Thursday, Oct. 24 at 7:30 p.m. in Degenstein Center Theater. Sponsored by The Writers' Institute at Susquehanna, the reading is free and open to the public. Phillips' work includes two collections of short stories, Black Tickets and Fast Lanes, and three novels, Machine Dreams, Shelter, and the recently released Motherkind. At 26, Phillips won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction given by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Other honors that Phillips has received include a nomination for the National Book Critics Circle Award, one of twelve Best Books of the Year by the New York Times, and the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Phillips has also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, and a Bunting Fellowship from Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. Her work has been translated into 12 different languages and has appeared in such publications as Harper's, Granta, Doubletake, and the Norton Anthology of Contemporary Fiction. Born and raised in West Virginia, Phillips has taught at Harvard University, Williams College, Boston University, and most recently, Brandeis University as a Writer-In-Residence. Thomas Bailey, assistant professor of English at Susquehanna University, considers it an honor to have Phillips visit the campus. "In 1975, Jayne Anne Phillips, at the age of 22, emerged as one of the most unique and vital voices to grace the literary scene in years with the publication of her first complete book of stories, Black Tickets. Her collection of short fiction, Sweethearts, shocked with its edgy female point of view and sang to the senses with the loveliness of its language and the dazzle of its vision," Bailey said. Phillips is one of six writers reading at Susquehanna for the 2002-2003 Visiting Writers Series. Next to appear will be nonfiction writer and poet Mary Karr on Monday, Feb. 24. The series is funded, in part, by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Contact: Victoria Kidd 570-372-4119 #vk/0524#