News Release

EVENT NEWS / October 10, 2007

Author Charles Baxter to Read as Part of Boise State University's MFA Reading Series

Award-winning author Charles Baxter will read at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 7 in room 101 of the Multipurpose Classroom Building at Boise State University. Baxter’s appearance is part of the MFA Reading Series and is free and open to the public.

Charles Baxter Click to enlarge Image

Baxter is the author of four novels, “Saul and Patsy,” “Shadow Play,” “First Light,” and “Feast of Love,” a National Book Award finalist that was recently adapted for film. His fifth novel, “The Soul Thief,” is due out in February 2008 from Pantheon Books.

Baxter is also the author of four short-story collections: “Believers,” “A Relative Stranger,” “Through the Safety Net” and “Harmony of the World,” which won the Associated Writing Programs Award. He has released three collections of poetry and a book of essays, as well as edited or co-edited a number of other books.

Born in Minneapolis, Baxter has remained in the Midwest throughout most of his writing career. Many of his pieces take place in the Midwest, often in or around the fictional town of Five Oaks, Mich. For several years, Baxter taught at Wayne State University in Detroit. He eventually moved to the MFA program at the University of Michigan, and most recently moved back to the Minneapolis area to teach in the MFA program at the University of Minnesota.

Baxter has won numerous awards throughout his writing career. His short story “Gryphon” was selected by Raymond Carver as one of the top 20 stories of 1986 in the “Best American Short Stories” anthology. In 1997 he was honored with the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Most recently, in 2007, he was awarded the Merit Medal for the Short Story from the Academy.

Free and open to the public, the MFA Reading Series brings nationally renowned authors and poets to the Boise State campus. Past speakers include Rick Bass, Chris Offutt, Rae Armantrout, Alice Notley, Michael Palmer, Joy Williams, Denis Johnson, Richard Bausch and Nathanial Mackey.

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Media Contact: Julie Hahn, University Communications, (208) 426-5540, juliehahn@boisestate.edu

For the 10th time in the last 11 years, Boise State University has set an all-time record for Idaho higher education institutions with an enrollment of 19,540 – an overall increase of 3.5 percent. A record freshman class of 2,280 students is also the most academically talented group ever to enter Boise State, including 12 National Merit finalists.

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Last reviewed on Wednesday, October 10, 2007