Prestigious writer comes to speak at Pitt for PCWS

‘ ‘ ‘ It’s not easy to be selected for the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ … ‘ ‘ ‘ It’s not easy to be selected for the Pittsburgh Contemporary Writers Series.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ According to its managing director, Jeff Oaks, a committee of writing professors meet about a year before the scheduled readings and shuffle through hundreds of names before deciding on a list of authors to invite. The number of these people who not only accept, but are able to come, eventually pushes the count of literary events to six to 12 a year.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ William Henry Lewis was one of the candidates whose name and resume were tossed around before being invited to give a literary reading for the 2008-09 season. Lewis, a novelist from Denver, Colo., has been awarded across a broad spectrum for his writing.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ His short story collection, ‘I Got Somebody in Staunton,’ was one of four finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Prize for Fiction and made its way to the Kirkus Review’s top 25 books of 2005. In addition, his nonfiction works have been published in Black Issues in Higher Education, Washington Post Book and O Magazine. ‘ ‘ ‘ Like many writers, Lewis tries to translate his knowledge to students hoping to learn the craft. He has taught at a variety of schools around the Northeast:’ University of Virginia, Denison University, Mary Washington College and Trinity College. ‘ ‘ ‘ Since members of the PCWS committee are all supposed to come to the meetings with a list of authors to consider, Oaks said that they chose Lewis because Fiona Cheong, a Pitt fiction writing professor, rallied for him.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘[Cheong] admires his work a lot, so she threw his name in the ring … once that happened, we all read up on him and agreed that he would be a great fit,’ Oaks said. ‘It can be a very long process, we always meet in September, but we won’t know the names for the upcoming year until March.’