FARMINGTON, ME (February 21, 2023)—The University of Maine at Farmington’s celebrated Visiting Writers Series is proud to present award-winning fiction writer Jessica Anthony as the popular program’s fifth reader of the season. Anthony will read from her work at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, March 2, 2023, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center. The reading is free and open to the public and will be followed by a book signing with the author.
Jessica Anthony
Anthony’s outrageous novel “Enter the Aardvark” (Little, Brown & Co., 2020) is about the journey of a young, closeted congressman who discovers an enormous box delivered to his doorstep containing a taxidermized aardvark.
Enter the Aardvark was a finalist for the New England Book Award in Fiction, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was featured in Time magazine. The Guardian calls the novel “An ingenious political satire…The perfect tonic for testing times…Anthony’s voice is all her own: deliciously astute, fresh and terminally funny.”
No stranger to travel, Anthony has worked internationally as a butcher at Sea Mart in Sitka, Alaska; taught English in the remote villages Rytro and Rygrot, Poland; and worked as a bridge guard for the Mária Valéria Bridge between Hungary and Slovakia.
Anthony is the recipient of fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, The Creative Capital Foundation and the Bogliasco Foundation. among others. Her short stories have been anthologized in Best New American Voices and Best American Nonrequired Reading. Anthony’s story, “The Death of Mustango Salvaje,” originally published by McSweeney’s, is currently in development with A24 for a limited TV series to be filmed in Spain.Anthony earned her MFA in fiction from George Mason University and is currently the director of the Creative Writing Concentration at Bates College.
Enter the Aardvark is available for pre-purchase at the UMF University Bookstore and at Devany, Doak and Garret Booksellers.
The Visiting Writer Series is sponsored by the UMF Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program.
More Information on the UMF Creative Writing Program
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 Sandy River Review, a student-run literary magazine; Ripple Zine, a feminist magazine;or The Farmington Flyer, a university newspaper.
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Media Contact: Amy Neswald, UMF professor of creative writing, at 207-778-8024, or Amy.Nesald@maine.edu.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Image: https://www.umf.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2023/02/RP223-036-scaled.jpg
Photo Caption: Jessica Anthony
Photo Credit: Submitted image
