STARKVILLE, Miss.--A graduate of Mississippi State who now directs a Texas-based creative writing program will read from his work Thursday [Oct. 6] in the university's Simrall Hall auditorium.
The 7 p.m. public program by Paul Ruffin, Regents Distinguished Professor of English at Sam Houston State University, is sponsored by the Robert Holland Creative Writing Reading Series at MSU. Support for the program also is supported by the English department and its Creative Writing Enhancement Fund made possible by Paul and Bernadette Lyons.
Ruffin is a 1964 MSU graduate who has published poetry, novels, essays, and short story collections. Founding editor of The Texas Review, he is a member of the Texas Institute of Letters, American Academy of Poets and Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters.
"Circling," his 1996 a collection of poems, was awarded the MIAL Prize. His novels include "Castle in the Gloom" in 2004 and "Pompeii Man" in 2002; the short story collections, "Islands, Women, and God" in 2001 and "The Man Who Would be God" in 1993.
A prolific writer, Ruffin also produces "Ruffin-It," a weekly newspaper column appearing locally in the Starkville Daily News, and Commercial Dispatch, as well as in Alabama and Texas papers.
For more information about the reading, telephone the English department at (662) 325-3644.
