FARMINGTON — The University of Maine at Farmington will  host award-winning poet January Gill O’Neil as the next reader in its notable Visiting Writers Series. The reading will take place at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 16  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.

O’Neil is the author of “Misery Islands” (CavanKerry Press 2014) selected for a 2015 Paterson Award for Literary Excellence. It was also selected as a Must-Read Book for 2015 by Mass Center for the Book and won the 2015 Massachusetts Book Award.

According to American poet Major Jackson on Misery Islands, “O’Neil candidly writes about family … of single-motherhood and of love, and in doing so penetrates the exquisiteness of the everyday while also highlighting the challenges of living as artist and mother. Indeed, there is fine balance of imagery and story and song that makes this a fine collection to own, to read back one’s own solitariness, one’s own joy.”

O’Neil is also the author of “Underlife,” (2009) and “Rewilding” to be published by CavanKerry Press in 2018. “Underlife” was a finalist for ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Award and the 2010 Paterson Poetry Prize. 

Her work has appeared in the American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review, Literal Latte, New England Review, North American Review and Ploughshares among many others.

In 2015, the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) elected O’Neil to their board of trustees. She is the executive director of the Massachusetts Poetry Festival and an assistant professor of English at Salem State University.