Award-Winning Author Russell Banks Speaks as SNC, Carpenter Lecturer

September 25, 2002

DELAWARE, OHIO -- In co-sponsorhip with the Carpenter Lecture Series, award-winning author Russell Banks will speak Monday, Sept. 30, at 8 p.m. as part of the Sagan National Colloquium public affairs series. His lecture, "Living in the Sweet Hereafter," will be held in Ohio Wesleyan's Gray Chapel and will explore the causes and effects of the horrific actions of "normal" people. There will also be a "Meet the Author" reception on Sept. 30 at 3 p.m. in the Benes Room of the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center. An accomplished fiction writer, Banks' titles include Searching for Survivors, Family Life, Hamilton Stark, The New World, The Book of Jamaica, Trailerpark, The Relation of My Imprisonment, Continental Drift, Success Stories, Affliction, The Sweet Hereafter, Rule of the Bone and Cloudsplitter. The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction have been adapted for feature-length films.

Banks has been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and Best American Short Story Award. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Continental Drift and Cloudsplitter were both finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 and 1998.

Banks has recently taught at several colleges and universities, including Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence, University of New Hampshire, New England College, New York University and Princeton University. Banks graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Sagan National Colloquium is in its 17th year at Ohio Wesleyan. All lectures are free and open to the public. More information is available at http://snc.owu.edu or 740-368-3995.