Contact: Chris Chesrown
Media Relations Manager
480-731-8503

Margaret Hogan
MCLI - College Honors Program
480-731-8305

For Immediate Release

BORDER CITY AUTHOR PROMOTES BUILDING COMMUNITY THROUGH LITERATURE

November 7, 2001 - One of the key ways to strengthen communities is through the power of words, according to award winning author Pat Mora. She advocates using literature and literacy as a way to build human bonds in our everyday lives and maintain cultural traditions through the generations.

Mora will explain how this can be accomplished at a public presentation on November 14 at 7:30pm in the Bulpitt Auditorium at Phoenix College. The talk is the third in a series of six programs focusing on "Customs, Traditions and Celebrations: The Human Drive for Community," as part of the Maricopa Community Colleges Honors Lecture Series. The event is free and open to the public.

"Relax and savor the pleasure of word play," says Mora. "We are all born poets. Even before birth we sense the rhythm of our mother's heartbeat. The external world has its rhythms, too - the sun rising and setting, the seasons, the ebb and flow of the sea." She says identifying these rhythms of life is how we can begin to connect with one another.

A native of El Paso, Texas, the border city to which her grandparents came during the Mexican Revolution, she speaks often about creative writing, leadership and multicultural education.

Mora was the Garrey Carruthers Chair in Honors, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of New Mexico, fall, 1999. She has received Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Kellogg Foundation. Among her other awards are the Pellicer-Frost '99 Bi-national Poetry Award, four Southwest Book Awards and the Premio Aztlan Literature Award.

Mora's fifth poetry collection is the illustrated volume, Aunt Carmen's Book of Practical Saints.

The Maricopa County Community College District, is one of the largest community college districts in the nation. It includes 10 colleges - Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Estrella Mountain Community College, GateWay Community College, Glendale Community College, Mesa Community College, Paradise Valley Community College, Phoenix College, Rio Salado College, Scottsdale Community College and South Mountain Community College. The District also includes the Maricopa Skill Center, Southwest Skill Center, several satellite campuses and business/industry, technical and customized training institutes and serves roughly a quarter million students annually. For more information: 480-731-8000 or www.maricopa.edu

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March 13, 2002