ATHENS, Ohio -- Poetry lovers and book junkies can satisfy their cravings at the 17th Annual Spring Literary Festival, May 8 through 10 at Ohio University.

This year's festival features five award-winning authors, fiction writer Jim Harrison, poets Stephen Dunn and Eleanor Wilner, and nonfiction writers Andrea Dworkin and Susan Griffin. Lectures and readings by the authors will be conducted in Irvine Auditorium on West Green and are free and open to the public.

"The Spring Literary Festival recalls the positive accessibility of the writer's salons of old where authors and the reading audience freely share their ideas, " says Richard Purdy, co-owner of Little Professor Book Center.

Dunn has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for "Different Hours," a collection of poems that examine the elusive realities of life. He has also earned fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, three National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships and an Academy Award in Literature from The American Academy of Arts & Letters. Poet G. E. Murray says Dunn's work is marked by a simple, conversational tone that "quietly surrounds the reader with recognitions that both inform and surprise." Dunn is the author of 11 books of poetry and is a Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at Richard Stockton College.

Dworkin is the author of 11 books, including "Intercourse," "Pornography" and most recently, "Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation." A well-known feminist and activist, she is viewed as a leader in the campaign against pornography. She and legal scholar Catherine A. Mackinnon drafted legislation declaring pornography to be a civil rights violation. Fellow author Martha C. Nussbaum describes Dworkin's prose as "a powerful instrument." Dworkin lives in New York City, where she writes about women, pornography and the U.S. Constitution.

A prolific and award-winning writer, Harrison has authored numerous books of poetry, fiction and essays as well as a screenplay for the movie "Wolf." His books include "Legends of the Fall," "The Raw and the Cooked" and "The Beast God Forgot to Invent." A reviewer in Publisher's Weekly exalts Harrison's "intricate symbolism and scathing observations of urban foibles, his sly humor and vibrant language. ... He is one of our most talented chroniclers of the masculine psyche, intellectual or not." Harrison divides his time between northern Michigan and Arizona.

A feminist writer and poet, Griffin is described by Floyd Skloot as "a feminist thinker whose prose books have examined such topics as war, the intertwined fate of the female body and the natural world, pornography and the complicity of violence and silence." The recipient of many awards, including a MacArthur Grant for Peace and International Cooperation and an Emmy for her play "Voices," Griffin's most recent book, "The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues," was published last year. Griffin teaches eco-feminism at the California Institute of Integral Studies and resides in Berkeley, Calif.

Wilner has published five volumes of poetry, including "Reversing the Spell: New and Selected Poems," "Precessional," and "Otherwise." She is the recipient of several awards, such as a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship and a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Grant, to name a few. Poet Alicia Ostriker lauds Wilner's poetry for its "visionary amplitude and revolutionary intelligence." Wilner teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program in writing at Warren Wilson College in North Carolina.

The festival begins at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 8 with a reading by Wilner followed by a reading by Griffin at 8:30 p.m. A complete schedule of readings and lectures is available at: www.ohio.edu/litfestival/.

Free parking for the festival is available in lots 127, 128 and 129 near the Convocation Center. For directions and a map, visit www.ohiou.edu/athens/parking/index.html.

The Literary Festival is sponsored by the Program in Creative Writing in the Department of English at Ohio University.