Walter Mosley will headline the 43rd annual UC Riverside Writers Week, billed as California's longest-running free literary event, the university announced Monday.
The Feb. 10-14 event will bring a total of 24 emerging and established authors to the Inland Empire to participate in readings and Q&As. A reading from current UCR MFA students and a special PEN Free Speech Forum with Jonathan Friedman, project director for campus free speech at PEN America, are also planned.
"As always, we have a number of illustrious writers with longstanding reputations, like Walter Mosley, Norma Cantu, Jerry Stahl, Marilyn Chin and our own Susan Straight and Laila Lalami, as well as celebrated young writers like Ishmael Beah, Wendy C. Ortiz, Lisa Teasley, Victoria Patterson, Rachel Howzell Hall and Brandon Hobson, and a number of people at the beginning of very promising careers," said Tom Lutz, professor and chair of the Department of Creative Writing and director of Writers Week.
Mosley, author of the best-selling historical mystery series featuring detective "Easy" Rawlins, will be at UCR's University Theatre the evening of Feb. 10 to make a presentation and receive the LA Review of Books-UCR Department of Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award.
"He is dear to the hearts of people who love the literature of Southern California, and dear to those who love noir, detective fiction, science fiction, and fantasy -- all genres that are important to us in creative writing at UCR," Lutz said.
Except for the headlining event, all presentations will be held in Screening Room 1128 of the CHASS Interdisciplinary Building, South.
Works by Writers Week authors will be available at the UCR Bookstore and at Cellar Door Books in Canyon Crest Towne Center.
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Writers Week, which is free and open to the public, is made possible by support from African Student Programs, the chancellor's office, the California Center for Native Nations, Professor Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, UCR's Ethnic Studies and English departments, the Ratliffe Family Foundation, the Los Angeles Review of Books and history professor Clifford Trafzer, the Rupert and Jeanette Henry Costo Chair in American Indian Affairs.
