MIT Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies MIT, Room 14E-303 Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 Telephone: 617-253-7894 FAX: 617-253-6910

Junot Díaz will open the Fall 08 MIT Writers' Series with a reading from his latest novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The event will be held on Thursday, September 25, 2008, in 32-123 at 7PM . Díaz received the 2008 Pulitzer Fiction Prize and the John Sargent First Novel Prize for his novel. Books will be available for signing. Junot Díaz also received The Dayton Literary Peace Prize for 2008. This is the only international literary peace prize awarded in the United States, celebrating the power of literature to promote peace and non-violent conflict resolution.

Premiere American poet John Ashbery will celebrate his newly published Library of America volume Collected Poems 1956-1987 in a reading at MIT on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008, 7PM in 32-123. Ashbery is the first living poet to be given a volume in the Library of America series. Books will be available for signing.

Karl Iagnemma will be reading from his works On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction and The Expeditions as the Fall 08 MIT Writers' Series continues. The event will be held on October 23, 2008, in 32-141 from 7PM. Iagnemma received the Paris Review Plimpton Prize for his short stories, and in 2004 was awarded a fiction grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Books will be available for signing.

Courtney Humphries will be reading from her book SUPERDOVE: How the Pigeon took Manhattan...and the World. The event will be held on October 30, 2008 in 32-141 at 7:00 pm.

NEW - First Year Writing Students' Magazine "Angles"