Award-winning novelist E.L. Doctorow will give a free public lecture, "Notes on the History of Fiction," at 6:30 p.m., March 27, on the campus of UNC-Chapel Hill, the university said today.

Doctorow's most recent novel, "The March," had its genesis in the history "The March to the Sea and Beyond," by UNC historian Joseph Glatthaar. The book is set during Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's Civil War march through Georgia and the Carolinas.

Doctorow, 77, acknowledges Glatthaar, the Stephenson Distinguished Professor in American Civil War Studies book, in the book. "The March" won the National Book Critics' Circle Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award.

"E.L. Doctorow's editor at Random House contacted me and said that he [Doctorow] had asked if I would read his manuscript," Glatthaar said in a university press release.

"I read it, and it was just magnificent. ... I sent my comments, and he and I have had steady correspondence ever since. He's been exceedingly generous in talking about my book."

Doctorow told the Chicago Tribune in 2005 that he had read Glatthaar's book some two decades earlier.

"At the time it occurred to me that I could write a novel on that — but I didn't do anything about it for many years," Doctorow told the newspaper.

Doctorow's books include "World's Fair," "The Book of Daniel," "Billy Bathgate" and "Ragtime."

The talk will take place in the auditorium of Hanes Art Center, on South Columbia Street near Franklin Street. A 5:30 p.m. book signing and sale will come before Doctorow's talk.

Limited parking for the lecture is available on campus in the Swain, Morehead and Ramshead lots; commercial parking is available on Rosemary Street.