UMF creative writing program presents Lia Purpura on Oct. 13

FARMINGTON – The University of Maine at Farmington’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program is proud to present award-winning author Lia Purpura as the next writer in its 2011-12 Visiting Writers Series. Purpura will read from her work at 7:30 p.m., on Thursday, Oct, 13, 2011, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center. The reading is free and open to the public and will be followed by a signing by the author.

Purpura is the author of “On Looking” (Sarabande Books, 2006) winner of the Towson University Award in Literature and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her works include: “King Baby” (Alice James Books, 2008) winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award; “Increase” (University of Georgia Press, 2000) winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award; “Stone Sky Lifting” (Ohio State University Press, 2000) winner of the OSU Press/The Journal Award; “The Brighter the Veil” (Orchises Press, 1996) also a winner of the Towson University Award in Literature; and “Poems of Grzegorz Musical: Berliner Tagebuch and Taste of Ash.” Her newest book of essays, “Rough Likeness” (Sarabande Books, 2012) will be released in January, 2012.

She has been awarded an NEA Fellowship; three Pushcart Prizes; a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council; and a Fulbright Fellowship; as well as residencies and fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, Millay Colony and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts.

Her work has been published in Agni Magazine, Double Take, Ecotone, Field, The Georgia Review, Orion, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Ploughshares and The Southern Review.

Purpura is a graduate of Oberlin College and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. She is a writer in residence at Loyola University and also teaches in the MFA program at the Rainier Writing Workshop.