Visiting Writers Series presents fiction reading

Peoria, Illinois . . . October 30, 2003 . . . Fiction writer, poet, essayist, playwright, and screenwriter Alexs D. Pate will give a fiction reading on November 12 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wyckoff Room of Cullom-Davis Library at Bradley University. The reading, sponsored by the Visiting Writers Series and the Intellectual and Cultural Activities Committee, is free and open to the public.

Pate was named a 2002 USA Weekend magazine "Achiever Who Will Lead the Next Generation." He has published five novels, Amistad (commissioned by Steven Spielbeg's Dreamworks/SKG), West of Rehoboth, Multicultiboho Sideshow, Finding Makeba, and Losing Absalom and one book of poetry, Innocent.

West of Rehoboth was selected as a 2002 Honor Fiction Book by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. Multicultiboho Sideshow was awarded the 2000 Minnesota Book Award for the Novel.

Losing Absalom received a 1995 Minnesota Book Award for best fiction and was awarded the Best First Novel by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.

Pate's fiction, essays, and poetry have appeared in magazines and journals such as Code, the Utne Reader, The Washington Post, USA Weekend, The Butterfly Tree, and The North Stone Review. Also, his work has been anthologized in Brotherman and Atlas of Literature. His co-written short feature film, Slowly This, aired on PBS and is in current circulation at film festivals.

He is an Assistant professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Minnesota where he teaches courses in writing, Black literature, and "The Poetry of Rap."