A series of free community readings and lectures given by well-known writers returns to Carolina for two sessions this year.

Janette Turner Hospital

Robert Olen Butler

Joyce Carol Oates

Shauna Singh Baldwin

Peter Balakian

Salman Rushdie

"Caught in the Creative Act" is directed and taught by Janette Turner Hospital, Carolina Distinguished Professor of English and Distinguished Writer-in-Residence. Hospital describes the 10-week series as "a new kind of course for all those who love books." Participants read a pre-selected book, attend a lecture about it, and then meet the author. There is no charge to take the course, thanks to funding from the Office of the Provost, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of English, and the Honors College.

Butler will open the fall session Sept. 1-19. He will read from and talk about A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, his Pulitzer Prize-winning short story collection. Oates will open the spring session March 17-19 with her 2004 novel The Falls.

Rushdie will wrap up the course April 7-9, 2008. Rushdie is perhaps best known for his fourth novel, The Satanic Verses, which raised a furor in the Muslim world. At Carolina, he will read from and discuss his novel Midnight's Children. That book won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize in 1981 and, in 1993, was awarded the Booker of Bookers prize, which recognizes the best of 25 years of winners.

More about "Caught in the Creative Act 2007," including author biographies and a full schedule of events, will be posted online at www.cas.sc.edu/CICA.

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