The reading is open to the public and will take place in the Pit, the central location of the UNC campus that Wolfe claimed was "as close to magic as I've ever been."
The event is sponsored by the Thomas Wolfe Society and will continue through the night until about noon Tuesday, Wolfe's actual birthday.
A party in the Pit, complete with a birthday cake and singing of "Happy Birthday," will follow the reading.
Also beginning today is an exhibition at the Wilson Library titled "A Kind of Magic Door: Thomas Wolfe at the University of North Carolina, 1916-1920." The North Carolina Collection Gallery will present the exhibition, featuring manuscripts, publications, photographs, and other artifacts that highlight Wolfe's time as a UNC student.
While at UNC, Wolfe stayed busy, writing and acting in plays, working as editor of The Daily Tar Heel and serving as class poet, among other activities.
The on-campus celebration will coincide with the U.S. Postal Service's Oct. 3 release of a new stamp featuring Wolfe, in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the writer's birthday.
On Oct. 17, the Department of English, the Thomas Wolfe Society and the Morgan Writer-in-Residence Program will sponsor a lecture on Thomas Wolfe at 7:30 p.m. in UNC's Memorial Hall.
The speaker will be Tom Wolfe (no relation), author of best-selling books "The Bonfire of the Vanities," "A Man in Full" and "The Right Stuff."
Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Styron also was scheduled to speak as part of the centennial, but he had to cancel his visit after being hospitalized for pneumonia.
