Nonfiction writer Janisse Ray and poet Linda Bierds will be this fall's featured authors for the Visiting Writers Series at the University of North Texas.

Both authors will read from selections of their works. Bierds' reading will be at 8 p.m. Oct. 22 (Thursday) in the ballroom (Room 34) of UNT's Gateway Center, located on North Texas Boulevard between Eagle Drive and Highland Street. Ray's reading will be at 8 p.m. Nov. 10 (Tuesday) in the Silver Eagle Suite A of UNT's University Union, located one block west of Welch and West Prairie streets.

Informal question-and-answer sessions will precede each reaching at 4 p.m. in Room 212 of UNT's Auditorium-English Building, located on West Hickory Street between avenues A and B.

"We want students to have the chance to hear and meet a wide range of terrific literary writers," said Corey Marks, UNT professor of English and event organizer. "We're thrilled with our lineup this fall!"

The series kicks off with Bierds, who has just released a volume entitled "Flight: New and Selected Poems." She has published seven individual collections of poetry and has received several recognitions for her work, including a McArthur Foundation Fellowship – often referred to as a "genius award."

Bierds is considered one of the strongest American poets writing today, said Marks.

"I think we're all taken with the range of voices and sources she draws into her poems, and especially by her abiding interest in history and science," said Marks. "Her visit will give our students the opportunity to encounter an American master."

Ray was invited to campus because her work coincides with concerns raised by this year's One Book, One Community program. Ray's writing and her work as an activist focuse on environmental concerns. Her "Ecology of a Cracker Childhood," which won the American Book Award in 2000, combines memoir with natural history in an examination of the complex relationship between poverty and a dying ecosystem. She is the author of three other books, most recently "Pinhook: Finding Wholeness in a Fragmented Land."

For its Visiting Writers Series, the English department generally invites one fiction writer and one poet each semester to read selections of their works at UNT.

One Book, One Community is an annual yearlong reading discussion program focusing on a theme and a book that reflects that theme. This year's selection of Jeff Goodell's "Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future" focuses on the 2009-2010 theme of America's Energy Future.

For more information, contact Marks at coreymarks@att.net or 940-565-2126 or Ruby Al-Qasem, creative writing assistant, at ruby_alqasem@yahoo.com or 214-240-5682.

The above text is based on a UNT News Service news release available on the web at http://web3.unt.edu/news/story.cfm?story=11624