Noted Poet and Fiction Writer Peter Meinke is 2007 Commencement Speaker

Award-winning poet and fiction writer Peter Meinke will be the speaker for the 44th Commencement of Eckerd College on Sunday, May 20, 2007.

Peter Meinke's most recent work, The Contracted World, is his fourteenth book of poems and seventh in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series, which includes Zinc Fingers, Scars, and Liquid Paper. His poetry has received many awards, including two National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Fellowships and three prizes from the Poetry Society of America. His book of short stories, The Piano Tuner, won the 1986 Flannery O'Connor Award; another collection, Unheard Music, will be published soon, along with his book on reading and writing poems, The Shape of Poetry. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and dozens of other magazines.

Now Eckerd College professor emeritus of creative writing, Professor Meinke taught literature and creative writing at Eckerd College for 27 years and served as the director of the Eckerd College Writing Workshop until 1993. He currently serves on the faculty of the popular Writers in Paradise Conference held each January at Eckerd and continues as a frequent guest lecturer in creative writing courses. In 2004, Professor Meinke was inducted as a foundation member into the Eckerd College Phi Beta Kappa chapter, Zeta of Florida. Peter is married to artist Jeanne Clark, and they have lived in St. Petersburg since 1966.

Since his retirement from Eckerd, Professor Meinke has been writer-in-residence at many colleges and universities including the University of North Carolina-Greensboro, Randolph Macon College, the University of Hawaii, and Converse College. From 2003 through 2005, he held the Darden Chair in Creative Writing at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Eckerd College's 44th Commencement will be held on Sunday, May 20, 2007 at 8:00 a.m. on Eckerd's South Beach Field. Visit the Commencement webpage for complete details.