On Thursday, students who have been studying a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel got to hear straight from the horse's mouth just what it took to write it -- and ask him detailed questions about what intrigued, confused, or enlightened them in their reading of his book.

Jeffrey Eugenides, author of Middlesex, spent 75 minutes with the students in the Living Writers course in conversation about the art and craft of writing.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author kicked off the Living Writers course, which will bring a number of acclaimed authors to campus throughout the semester to interact with students in the class and give public readings.

Ten writers, including Pulitzer Prize winners Elizabeth Strout, Junot Diaz, and Jeffrey Eugenides, will visit campus, providing the 55 students in the class a unique opportunity to interact with them in several different settings.

Author Elizabeth Strout, who taught at Colgate two years ago and will return to campus this fall, has won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Strout won for her book Olive Kitteridge, a series of 13 connected short stories centered on a school teacher living in a hardscrabble town in coastal Maine. The Pulitzer citation says her collection of stories "packs a cumulative emotional wallop, bound together by polished prose and by Olive, the title character, blunt, flawed and fascinating."

He's been called "one of the most exhilarating of all living poets."

The Colgate community will receive a literary treat from Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon when he reads from his collection of poetry at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in Golden Auditorium.

Muldoon's coming to Colgate as part of the Living Writers Series, co-sponsored by the English Department and the Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts.