GREENSBURG, PA- Frances Mayes, best-selling author of Under the Tuscan Sun, will appear at Seton Hill College on Thursday, November 8, 2001 as part of the College’s Lynch Lecture Series. The presentation will be held on campus in Cecilian Hall at 8:00 p.m. and will be followed immediately by a book signing. “We are delighted that Frances Mayes has accepted our invitation to speak at Seton Hill College,” Sande Hendricks, Chair of the Lynch Lecture Committee, said. “She is a very gifted artist and I look forward to meeting her and hearing her comments. Her writing has experienced many shifts—she’s published several volumes of poetry and articles for specialty publications—particularly those with focuses on wine and food. As a novelist now, Mayes has such a depth of talent to share with us. Seton Hill students will benefit tremendously as we all will.” A poet and teacher of creative writing at San Francisco State University, Frances Mayes spends half of the year in Cortona, Italy. Under the Tuscan Sun, is a memoir about taking chances, living in Italy, loving and renovating an old Italian villa and the pleasures of food as well as the “voluptuousness of Italian life.” Under the Tuscan Sun has spent over two years on the New York Times Best Seller List. Her book Bella Tuscany, published in 1999, is a memoir of her further adventures in Italy and is also a New York Times Bestseller. Mayes and her husband recently collaborated on a photo book with text titled In Tuscany. Mayes has also written five books of poetry: Sunday in Another Country, After Such Pleasure, The Arts or Fire, The Book of Summer and most recently, Ex Voto. She is also the author of the college textbook The Discovery of Poetry. Her autobiographical essays have been published in the American Poetry Review, the American Scholar, the Gettysburg Review, Ploughshares, the Southern Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review. The Thomas Lynch Fund was established in 1957 by Thomas Lynch of Greensburg, to provide for the appearance and presence at the College of well-known and respected authorities on public affairs and policies, lecturers and artists. Previous Lynch Lecturers who have appeared at Seton Hill include: Lech Walesa, Mitch Albom, Maya Angleou, Robert Bork, Art Buchwald, Shirley Chisholm, Bishop William Connare, Carlos Fuentes, George Gallup, Jr., Sir Tyrone Guthrie, Samuel Hazo, Frank McCourt, David McCullough, Bill Moyers, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Cokie Roberts, Mark Russell, Monsignor William Granger Ryan, Eric Sevareid, Kurt Waldheim and Elie Weisel. Tickets for the event are $20 per person. Reservations are required. Please call 724-830-4626 to purchase general admission tickets. In addition, there are limited seats available for a private dinner at 6:00 p.m. before the presentation in the Seton Hill College Parlors located in the Administration Building on campus. Tickets for dinner and the event, with complimentary valet parking are $150 per person. Free parking at the Robert Bell Garage on Otterman Street in Greensburg with shuttle service to Cecilian Hall will be available. Valet parking, at the cost of $5.00, will be available as well. Parking and other arrangements for those with special needs will be made if requested in advance by calling 724-830-4626