FARMINGTON – The celebrated University of Maine at Farmington Visiting Writers Series is proud to present its final guest author for the year. Award-winning poet Ross Gay will read from his work at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, April 19, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center.
The reading is free and open to the public, to be followed by a meet and greet with the author.
Gay is the author of “Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude,” winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award – poetry category and the 2016 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. It is also a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Books Critics Award, the Ohioana Book Award, the Balcones Poetry Prize, the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and was nominated for an NAACP Image Award.
Gay is also the author of two previous collections, “Bringing the Shovel Down” and “Against Which.” He is also the co-author of chapbooks ‘Lace and Pyrite: Letters from Two Gardens” with Aimee Nezhukumatathil and “River” with Richard Wehrenberg, Jr.
He is a founding editor, with Karissa Chen and Patrick Rosal, of the online sports magazine Some Call it Ballin’, in addition to being an editor with the chapbook presses Q Avenue and Ledge Mule Press.
Gay is a founding board member of the Bloomington Community Orchard,a non-profit, free-fruit-for-all food justice and joy project. He has received fellowships from Cave Canem, the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, and the Guggenheim Foundation. He teaches at Indiana University.
As the only Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program in the state of Maine and one of only three in all of New England, the UMF program invites students to work with faculty, who are practicing writers, in workshop-style classes to discover and develop their writing strengths in the genres of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction. Small classes, an emphasis on individual conferencing, and the development of a writing portfolio allow students to see themselves as artists and refine their writing under the guidance of accomplished and published faculty mentors. Students can pursue internships to gain real-world writing and publishing experience by working on campus with The Beloit Poetry Journal, a distinguished poetry publication since 1950; or Alice James Books, an award-winning poetry-publishing house.
