"I want to put the stuff I see in my mind on the page.  I want to draw with works, draw the feelings of it, draw the feelings into little words . . . I can't stop writing: I don't want to, either."

Self taught author Albert French celebrates the human spirit through his words and stories.  Twenty years after surviving first a terrifying tour of duty in Vietnam as a marine corporal and then a failed magazine venture in his home town of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Albert French began to write—had to write—about his life, the memories that haunted him, and the sense of purpose that eluded him.  The resulting works of fiction and nonfiction skillfully celebrate the triumph of the human spirit over the unrelenting horrors of life.

BILLY: "The best first novel by a black author since Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in 1969"—Time

HOLLY: "Anguishing. Mr. French's subject remains the American inter-racial experience at mid century. . . The beauty of Mr. French's language is exceptional"—New York Times Book Review

PATCHES OF FIRE: " A taughtly introspective, impressionistic literary memoir that fills a gaping void in the literature of the American was in Vietnam by brilliantly illuminating the are and post-was experience of an African-American veteran."—Kirkus Review

Cosponsored by: Department of English, Department of History, Department of Political Science, Department of Speech Communications, Afro-American Studies and Research Program, Creative Writing Program, Unit One/Allen Hall, African American Cultural Center, Krannert Art Museum and Kinkead Pavilion, Psychological Services Center, Champaign Public Library, Champaign School District #4