So you're at a social get-together, and everyone around you is talking about the upcoming play-turned-into-a-movie "Under One Roof," and you have no idea what they're talking about. What do you do?

Well, you can take time out of your so-called "social life" and listen to a lecture, as well as excerpts from the play, by the author, Julieta Gonzalez, tonight in the Modern Languages auditorium at 7 p.m.

You'll engage, hopefully, in "political awareness and intellectual debate" (don't hurt yourself), if you attend the Visiting Writers Series "Crossing Borders," said Alesia Garcia, chairwoman and coordinator of the writers series.

The writers series is a program featuring multi-cultural writers and lecturers from Tucson and the Southwest community, Garcia said.

The series also coexists with the New Start Summer Bridge and the Med Start programs, Garcia, a New Start English teacher, said.

New Start Summer Bridge is a program to help ease the transition from high school to college in six weeks. Med Start is for high school juniors and seniors interested in health-related careers, and is separate from New Start.

The series is devoted to help students in the programs to express themselves about their self, school and community, as well as to get the students to talk about the transition from high school to college, Garcia said.

The goal of the series is to give the students a "first glimpse to be part of the university community," Garcia said. It also serves as a way for the student to "express themselves, and allow the authors to serve as an inspiration."

Garcia said the series seems to get "more and more successful each year."

The series provides a wide variety of writing, from fiction and poetry to screenwriters, political cartoonists and children's writers, Garcia said.

She said controversial authors, like Vince Guiterrez, help encourage students to keep the discussion going.

In its five-year history, the series has had such writers as recognized Native American poet Sherman Alexie, Denise Chavez and author Greg Sarris, whose story, "Grand Avenue," was made into a mini-series on HBO and directed by Robert Redford.

The series has also had UA graduates Alberto Rios and Joel Huerta come and lecture, Garcia said.

The series, through its grant from the UA Extended University and Office of Summer Session, cannot hire tenured faculty, like Scott Mommaday, Garcia said.

Her "Dream Team" of authors to come to the series would be such well-knowns as Navajo poet Lucy Tappah and Lakota author Leslie Marmon Silko.

The series contains five lectures per summer and has only two more - this week and next.

Next week's author will be Ruth Foreman, an African American poet from UCLA.