Three award-winning authors will visit Gainesville Nov. 5 and 6 for the 61st Florida Writers’ Festival.

The festival, hosted by the University of Florida’s MFA program in creative writing, known as MFA@FLA, and sponsored by the Alachua County Library District and the Friends of the George A. Smathers Library, brings nationally distinguished poets and fiction writers to campus for a two-day series of readings and lectures. The free festival this year will feature the following authors:

• Henri Cole is the author of seven collections of poetry. His book “Middle Earth” was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
• James Lasdun has published short-story and poetry collections, novels, non-fiction, and screenplays. His new collection of stories, “It’s Beginning to Hurt,” was one of the Atlantic’s Best Five Books of 2009.
• Wells Tower, named one of America’s 20 best writers under 40 by The New Yorker magazine, is an author of fiction and non-fiction.

Schedule of festival events:

• Nov. 5: Cole and Lasdun read from 8 to 10 p.m., Smathers Library East, UF campus, followed by a brief reception.
• Nov. 6: All three authors present 30-minute talks, followed by an informal reception,
  1- 3 p.m., Alachua County Library Headquarters.
• Nov. 6: Wells Tower readings, followed by a reception, 8 to 10 p.m., Smathers Library East, UF campus.

MFA@FLA, the program in creative writing at UF, is one of the oldest writing programs in the South, founded in 1948. MFA@FLA was recently ranked the 11th best creative writing program in the country by Poets & Writers magazine.

For more information about the 2010 Florida Writers’ Festival, please contact Becca Evanhoe at 785-979-6651 or  r.evanhoe@ufl.edu.

Visit the MFA@FLA website: www.english.ufl.edu/crw.