Reading by Alex Kuo, March 27

Alex Kuo, an award-winning author and Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Knox College this spring, will read from his own works at 4 p.m., Friday, March 27, in the Alumni Room, Old Main, Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois. The reading is free and open to the public.

A 1961 Knox graduate, Kuo has published two novels and more than 350 poems, short stories, photographs and essays. His work also has been selected for several anthologies, including Andre Codrescu's "American Poets Say Goodbye to the 20th Century."

Kuo's most recent books are "White Jade and Other Stories," published in 2008, and "Panda Diaries," a novel published in 2006. His collection, "Lipstick and Other Stories" received the 2002 American Book Award. Kuo, who has taught and traveled extensively in China, received a grant to do research on the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in China, in preparation for his next novel, Long River.

Kuo has taught writing, literature and ethnic studies at South Dakota State University, Roger Williams University and the University of Colorado. He has taught in China as a Senior Fulbright Scholar, and in Hong Kong as the Lingnan Scholar in American Studies. He was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio residency in 2003.

Kuo was a Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Knox College in 2004, and at Fudan University in China in 2008.

Founded in 1837, Knox is a national liberal arts college in Galesburg, Illinois, with students from 47 states and 48 countries. Knox's 'Old Main' is a National Historic Landmark and the only building remaining from the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates.

Photo: Alex Kuo, Robin Metz and Monica Berlin talk after one of Kuo's previous campus readings.