The Denison University Beck Lecture Series presents poet Victor LaValle as the first of eight guest lecturers for the spring semester schedule. He will give a lecture at 4 p.m. and a reading at 8 p.m. on Monday (Jan. 31) in the Board Room of Barney Davis Hall (200 West Loop Road on the Denison campus). The lecture and reading are free and open to the public.

LaValle is the author of two books. "Slapboxing with Jesus" is a collection of stories that won the PEN Open Book Award. His other work "The Ecstatic" is a novel, which was a finalist for the 2002 PEN Faulkner Award and Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. LaValle has been awarded a fellowship to the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, as well as the key to Southeastern Queens. He has also won a Whiting Award.

LaValle earned a bachelor's degree in English from Cornell University and also earned his M.F.A. in fiction from Columbia University. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., and teaches writing at Columbia University. His recent work has appeared in "GQ," "The Washington Post" and "Daedelus" and he also was included in "Step into a World: A Global Anthology of New Black Literature" edited by Kevin Powell.

The Beck Lecture Series was endowed in memory of Harriet Ewens Beck to bring outstanding writers to the Denison campus. The series has hosted such writers as Eudora Welty, Alice Walker, Tom Stoppard and W.S. Merwin. Under the sponsorship fund, each year 10 to 12 writers read from their works and participate in master classes.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

For press inquiries:

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Barbara Stambaugh

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Director, Media Relations

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(740) 587-8575