NEW ENDOWED CHAIR TO GIVE READING AT DIEHN CENTER APRIL 4

Poet and author Peter Meinke, the new Darden Endowed Chair of Creative Writing in the Old Dominion University Department of English, will give a reading from his work at 8 p.m. Friday, April 4, in room 136 of the Diehn Fine and Performing Arts Center.

Meinke has published 12 books of poetry, including "Zinc Fingers," (2000) "Scars" (1996) and "Liquid Paper" (1991), and received an NEA fellowship in poetry. He has also published a collection of short stories and two works of nonfiction.

His collection of stories, "The Piano Tuner," won the 1986 Flannery O'Connor Award. "Zinc Fingers," received the 2001 SEBA Award from the Southeast Booksellers Association.

Recently he was Distinguished Visiting Writer at Converse College, in South Carolina; he lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Meinke will officially begin his duties at Old Dominion in fall 2003, but will serve as writer-in-residence this spring.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of a salesman, Meinke served in the U.S. Army from 1955-57. He is a graduate of Hamilton College (B.A. 1955), the University of Michigan (M.A., 1961), and earned his Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota (1965). Meinke taught English at a New Jersey high school, Hamline University and Presbyterian College (now Eckerd College) in Florida, where he began directing the writing workshop in 1972. His reviews, poems and stories have appeared in periodicals such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The New Republic.