The flow of creativity will increase on campus Saturday.

Richard Powers will visit the University of Denver to discuss creative writing from 4-9:30 p.m. Saturday in Lindsay Auditorium in Sturm Hall.

Powers will speak at 4 p.m. and then will hold a reading of his work at 8 p.m.

Powers is an award-winning author who has written several books and articles, consisting primarily of science fiction.

He currently teaches undergraduate and graduate level creative writing at the University of Illinois.

He has been appointed a MacArthur Fellow and named as one of five “Writers of the Decade” by Esquire magazine.

When Powers was 11, his father, a school principal, moved the family to Thailand. This happened during the Vietnam War. They returned when Powers was 16.

Powers then returned to the United States and graduated high school.

Powers enrolled at the University of Illinois in 1975 as a physics major, but soon switched to English.

After obtaining his bachelor and master’s degrees, Powers worked as a computer programmer. He soon quit his job after seeing an August Sander’s photograph and wrote his first novel, Farmers on Their Way to a Dance, based on the photograph.

The novel was centered on Sander’s photograph and incorporates real people with fiction.

He covers the historic occurences from World War I to the computer age in non-chronological order.

Powers then spent time traveling through Europe, living in Holland.

Powers uses the experiences he gained traveling and in science in his writing.

Powers has written eight books. His most recent book, The Time of our Singing, came out in January.

He has written articles for The New Yorker and The New York Times concerning the millennium, computer technology and American culture.

Powers has been called “America’s preeminent novelist of ideas.”

The event is free and open to the public.

For more information contact Brian Kiteley at x12898.