March 8, 2004 SELINSGROVE, (Pa.) – At the end of March, Robert Boswell will become Susquehanna University’s first extended-residency creative writer. He will be on campus for a week visiting classrooms and presenting a public reading, as part of The Writers Institute’s Visiting Writers Series. The reading, which is free and open to the public, will commence at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 31, in Isaacs Auditorium of Seibert Hall. Boswell is the author of eight critically acclaimed books and a faculty member in the creative writing program at the University of Houston. He is the author of six novels, including Crooked Hearts, which has been made into a movie, Mystery Ride, American Owned Love and Century’s Son. He is also the author of two collections of short stories, Dancing in the Movies and Living to Be. He wrote the play Tongues, which won the John Gassner Playwriting Award and was produced by the American Southwest Theatre Company. Joanne Wilkinson from Booklist had this to say about Century’s Son, Boswell’s most recent work: “Like some alchemist, he uses language to invoke a depth of feeling out of all proportion to the simplicity of his words.” Boswell’s stories have appeared in such magazines as the New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Best Stories from the South, and Ploughshares. He has received the Pushcart Prize, Iowa School of Letters Award for Fiction, a PEN West Award for Fiction, National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He began teaching at New Mexico State University in 1989 and for the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers in 1986. In 2002, he joined the faculty at the prestigious University of Houston creative writing program. He resides in Texas with his wife, the writer Antonya Nelson, and their two children. Boswell is the seventh of eight writers scheduled to read at Susquehanna during the 2003-2004 school year as part of the Visiting Writers Series sponsored by The Writers Institute. On April 19, editor Shannon Ravenel will visit the university. Contact: Victoria Kidd 570-372-4119 #vk/2186#