2/3/98

CONTACT: Diane Manuel, News Service (650) 725-1945;
e-mail dmanuel@leland.stanford.edu

Writer Grace Paley to speak at Stanford Feb. 9 and 10

Writer Grace Paley will give a public reading of her work at 8 p.m. Monday, Feb. 9, in Kresge Auditorium.

Paley also will conduct a colloquium on writing fiction, "How to Tell 'What,'" at 11 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10, in Encina Commons, room 119.

Both events are free and open to the public. For more information, call 725-1208.

Paley is the second of three writers who are visiting Stanford this year under the auspices of the Creative Writing Program's Jean and Bill Lane Lecture Series. The series recently was permanently endowed by the Lanes on the occasion of its 15th anniversary.

Acclaimed as one of the leading fiction writers of her generation, Paley is a master of the short story. Her recently published Collected Stories assembles work from her best-known collections, The Little Disturbances of Man, Enormous Changes at the Last Minute and Later the Same Day. The stories originally appeared in such magazines as The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly and Esquire.

Paley was born in New York City in 1922, the child of Russian Jewish immigrants. She attended Hunter College and New York University, and has taught at Columbia University, Syracuse University and Sarah Lawrence College. She is the recipient of numerous honors and awards, and is a Fellow of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Throughout her career, Paley has been an eloquent observer of urban life, especially the lives of women. Her stories, which often explore the pressures placed on private lives by social, political and economic systems, are known for their wit and elegance of style, as well as the compassion of their characterizations.

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By Diane Manuel