The Irvin D. Reid Honors College is partnering with the Wayne State English Department to host author and former Wayne State English professor Charles Baxter for a talk titled "Improvising Fiction: A Talk by Charles Baxter - What good is fiction anyway?" at 3 p.m., Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 in the Bernath Auditorium of the Undergraduate Library.

Baxter will be reading a short story titled "Westland" from his book "A Relative Stranger" followed by an interview conducted by the Dean of the Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Jerry Herron.

"The Irvin D. Reid Honors College is delighted to join with the Wayne State University English Department to host a visit by one of America's finest writers, Charles Baxter," said Herron. "Charlie's work is known and loved by readers of his stories, his essays, his novels, and his poetry. He writes with special feeling and insight and tender loving grace about matters local to us all that always turn out to be anything but just local in the end."

Baxter, an accomplished and award winning author, is currently the Edelstein-Kellor Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Minnesota. He has published three novels, including "First Light" and "Shadow Play." His third novel, "The Feast of Love," has been made into a film starring Morgan Freeman and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 2000. He has also published four books of stories, a book of poems, and several essays on fiction. Additionally, he has received the Award of Merit in the Short Story, the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Rea Award in the Short Story in 2012. Baxter earned his bachelor's from Macalester College and his Ph.D. from the University of New York at Buffalo.

Those planning to attend the event are asked to RSVP: https://events.wayne.edu/rsvp/charles-baxter.

For more information about this event, please contact the Irvin D. Reid Honors College at (313) 577-3030 or email honors@wayne.edu.

Wayne State University is a premier urban research institution of higher education offering more than 370 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to nearly 28,000 students.