Acclaimed author visits Grand Valley

Critically acclaimed novelist, essayist, and poet Marge Piercy comes to Grand Valley on Wednesday, September 29 . The lecture is part of Grand Valleys Academic Lecture Series, a highlight of this years Fall Arts Celebration. The lecture is at 7 p.m. at the Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center, 401 W. Fulton St. in Grand Rapids. It is free and open to the public, and followed by a reception.

Piercy is the award-winning author of 30 books of poetry and fiction. A Detroit native, Piercy attended the University of Michigan and received her masters degree from Northwestern University. The prolific writer and activist is known for incorporating her own experiences as well as social issues  civil rights, feminism and environmentalism in particular  into her work. Her novels include City of Darkness, City of Light; The Longings of Women; Woman on the Edge of Time; and the most recent, Three Women (1999), in which she depicts the travails of single, independent women in a multigenerational story that manages to cover most of the feminist issues of the late 20th century (Publishers Weekly). Among her best-known collections of poetry are Early Grrrl and The Art of Blessing the Day.

For Grand Valleys Fall Arts Celebration, Piercy plans to address the value of science fiction and utopian literature in her lecture, Stories Stronger Than Fact.