Novelist David Payne will read from his fiction on Tuesday, March 20 at 8 p.m. as part of Coastal Carolina University's "Words to Say It" visiting writers series. The free event will be held in the auditorium of the E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration. A reception and book signing will follow the reading.

Payne, the author of five novels ("Back to Wando Passo" in 2006), is teaching an upper level fiction workshop at Coastal this year as a visiting writer.

His other books include "Confessions of a Taoist on Wall Street" (Houghton Mifflin, 1984) which was winner of the Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship Award; "Early from the Dance" (Doubleday, 1989); "Ruin Creek," (Doubleday, 1993), a New York Times Notable Book; and "Gravesend Light" (Doubleday, 2000).

Originally from Henderson, N.C., Payne attended Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, graduating with highest honors in creative writing in 1977.

He taught creative writing courses at Bennington College, Duke University and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, N.C. Payne now lives in Hillsborough, N.C., with his wife and two children.

For more information contact Dan Albergotti at (843) 349-2420.