The University of Miami’s Creative Writing Program welcomes award-winning author Peter Selgin February 13-17 for a week of new beginnings. Selgin, author of the “Your First Page” blog and 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers, is a renowned editor of opening sentences, paragraphs, and pages. Join the Creative Writing Program as Selgin reads at Books and Books, conducts one-on-one manuscript consultations for senior creative writing students, and hosts the seminar “In the Beginnings” to discuss manuscript openings. Please visit http://www.as.miami.edu/english/creativewriting/writerinresidence for details.

For more information, please contact M. Evelina Galang, director of the Creative Writing Program, at [email protected] or Jen Mehan at [email protected].

The Department of Epidemiology and Public Health will host grand rounds on Wednesday, February 15 from 12 to 1 p.m. at the Clinical Research Building, first-floor auditorium. Harold Pollack, the Helen Ross Professor of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, will present “Improving Social-Cognitive Skills Among Disadvantaged Youth: A Randomized Field Experiment.”

Pollack researches youth violence—a major concern in Chicago and many other communities across the U.S. Improving social-cognitive skills offers one promising strategy to reduce such violence. Pollack’s study team partnered with World Sport Chicago and Youth Guidance to conduct one of the largest individually randomized experimental tests of such an intervention in 15 Chicago public schools. His public health policy research has been published extensively, and he has been appointed to three committees of the National Academy of Sciences. For more information, contact Jane Brooks at [email protected].

The Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences will host grand rounds on Wednesday, February 15 from 12 to 1:30 p.m. in the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute Retter Educational Center, Jose Berrocal Auditorium. Walter H. Kaye, professor and director of the Eating Disorders Treatment and Research Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California at San Diego, will present on “Is Anorexia Nervosa an Eating Disorder? New Insights into Puzzling Symptoms.”

The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine designates this educational activity for a maximum of 1.50 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits. Physicians should only claim credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity. This activity will provide 1.50 CEs to psychologists, social workers, and nurses who attend. For more information, please call Carmen Bou-Crick at 305-355-9073, email [email protected], or visit the departmental website.

The College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Art and Art History presents the solo exhibition Legerdemain, by photographer Jeffrey Stern, on view February 6 to 24 at Wynwood Project Space, 2200-A N.W. Second Avenue, Miami. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, February 11.

The exhibition features recent work that explores an unseen view of the interaction of people, their environment, and the interplay of light. Through a series of 40 photographs, Stern has captured views of everyday life that we all pass by, unaware of their existence.

For more information about the exhibition or Wynwood Project Space, call 305-284-2543 or email [email protected]. For a full schedule of exhibitions, visit www.as.miami.edu/art.

The Department of Theatre Arts 2011-2012 season resumes with Stage Door, which will run February 15-25 at the Jerry Herman Ring Theatre.

Stage Door is a witty and stylish 1937 American comedy centering around a group of aspiring actresses crammed into a theatrical boarding house in Manhattan while awaiting their big break on Broadway’s Great White Way. Stage Door showcases love affairs, betrayals, snappy wisecracks, rejections, drama, despair, and plenty of delicious comedy. The central plot focuses on Terry Randall (Katherine Hepburn in the 1937 film), a stage-struck actress totally driven by her talent and ambition who refuses to be enticed by the money and glamour of the movies. What the other young residents of the boarding house bring to the play is a veritable carnival of memorably eccentric characters. Stage Door is a genuine valentine to the theatre as well as a comic send-up of the Hollywood film industry. The Jerry Herman Ring Theatre production features talented theatre students performing in glamorous period costumes and scenery.

Tickets go on sale Monday, February 6 at noon. Prices: weeknights and matinee general admission $18; seniors and UM faculty, staff, and alumni $16; students $10. Friday and Saturday nights general admission $20; seniors and UM faculty, staff, and alumni $20; students $12. For more information visit www.as.miami.edu/theatrearts/ring.html.