As part of the newly created Conversations with Authors series, the Wayne State University Library System will bring Charles Johnson, African-American novelist, short story writer, essayist and cartoonist, to the Community Room in the David Adamany Undergraduate Library on the campus of Wayne State University on Mon., Oct. 3, 2005 at 1 p.m.

Johnson will lead a panel of campus and community speakers to discuss other authors’ as well as his own literary works. He will sign books at the end of the program. “We are thrilled to host this world-renowned author. Charles Johnson will lead a riveting panel discussion affording a rare opportunity for the Wayne State and Detroit communities,” said Sandra Yee, dean of the Wayne State University Library System.

Johnson first came to distinction in the 1960s as a political cartoonist, a time when he was also involved in radical politics. In 1970, he published a collection of cartoons, which led to a PBS television series about cartooning. Johnson\'s first novel, “Faith and the Good Thing” was published in 1974. In 1990, he was awarded the National Book Award for “Middle Passage.” Johnson is currently the Pollock Professor in Humanities at the University of Washington. He received the MacArthur Fellowship in 1998, and also a Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2003, he published “Turning the Wheel,” a collection of essays about his experiences as an African-American Buddhist.

The Wayne State University Library System consists of the universities\' five libraries: The David Adamany Undergraduate Library, the Purdy/Kresge Library, the Shiffman Medical Library, the Arthur Neef Law Library and the Science and Engineering Library, the Library and Information Science Program and the Office for Teaching and Learning.

Wayne State University is a premier institution offering more than 350 academic programs through 11 schools and colleges to more than 34,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.