September 4, 2003 SELINSGROVE, (Pa.) - Award-winning writer Gary Fincke will be reading from his recently published book, Writing Letters for the Blind, at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 10, in the Shearer Dining Rooms of the Degenstein Campus Center at Susquehanna University. Writing Letters for the Blind won the 2003 Ohio State University Press/The Journal Book Award, one of the most competitive poetry competitions in the United States. Fincke has published 16 books of poetry and short fiction, most recently The Stone Child, a short story collection which will be released late in September, and Blood Ties, a collection of poems in 2002. Fincke also has a book of nonfiction coming out in 2004 titled Kicking Ass, a personal record of his son's rock-n-roll life with the signed bands, Lifer and Breaking Benjamin. Fincke has received the Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry Magazine, the Rose Lefcowitz Prize from Poet Lore, a PEN Syndicated Fiction Prize, as well as seven fellowships for creative writing from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, including one this year for creative nonfiction. His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in such periodicals as Harper's, Newsday, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, The Georgia Review, American Scholar, and Doubletake. At Susquehanna, Fincke teaches introductory and advanced classes in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. In addition to his teaching duties, he is also head of Susquehanna's Writers' Institute. This reading is free and open to the public. Copies of Writing Letters for the Blind will be available for purchase and signing. For more information, call 570-372-4302. Contact: Victoria Kidd 570-372-4119 #vk#0205