Dianne Aprile to Read Thursday at UPB

Writer Dianne Aprile, author of four books of nonfiction, will read from her work at noon Thursday, March 24, in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford.

Prior to Aprile’s reading, a luncheon will be served at 11:30 a.m. in the University Room. The event is free and open to the public and is being presented as part of the university’s Spectrum Series.

A former newspaper reporter and columnist, Aprile now teaches in the Master of Fine Arts writing program at Spalding University in Kentucky.

Her books include “The Abbey of Gethsemani: Place of Peace and Paradox” about the first Trappist monastery in the United States, which was started by Thomas Merton in Kentucky; “Making a Heart for God: A Week Inside a Catholic Monastery”; and “The Things We Don’t Forget: Views from Real Life,” a collection of her newspaper columns.

“She’s done a range of nonfiction writing – from news and feature to very literary creative nonfiction,” said Dr. Nancy McCabe, associate professor of writing.

Aprile is currently at work on a memoir, a portion of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

As a staff writer for The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Ky.) and The Louisville Times, she won the National Society of Newspaper Columnists’ top award in 1996, and in 1989 shared a staff Pulitzer Prize for team coverage of the aftermath of a northern Kentucky school bus crash.

Her collection of Courier-Journal columns, “The Things We Don’t Forget,” was adapted for stage and produced by the University of Louisville theater department.

As a journalist, she earned more than a dozen first-place awards from the Society of Professional Journalists in the areas of criticism, magazine writing, column writing and feature writing.

She holds a Master of Fine Arts in writing from Spalding.

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