PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT


	One of this year's National Book Award nominees, the novelist
and short story writer Janet Peery, will give a public reading of her
work Wednesday , Feb. 12, at 8 p.m. in Campbell Hall 153 at the
University of Virginia. Of her first book, "Alligator Dance" (Southern
Methodist University Press), Dorothy Allison wrote in The New York
Times Book Review, "[These stories] are the product of a thoroughly
engaged intellect, one that listened to her insides, one that has the
blessing of both insight and a sense of humor. This is one of the best
first collections I have ever read." For her novel, "The River Beyond
The World" (Picador), which was a finalist for this year's National
Book Award, Peery has been praised as "an elegant writer, lyrical but
always in control." Peery has received an NEA Fellowship, the
Rosenthal Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a
Whiting Foundation Writer's Award.  Peery's reading, sponsored by the
Henry Hoyns Foundation of the Creative Writing Program at U.Va., is
free and open to the public.

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February 6, 1997

START DATE:   Immediate
KILL DATE:      Feb. 13, 1997
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