FARMINGTON, ME (September 19, 2024)—The University of Maine at Farmington is excited to present short story writer Juliana Lamy as the second reader of the 2024-25 season of its popular Visiting Writers series.
Lamy is a Haitian fiction writer from South Florida and recent graduate of the Iowa Writers Workshop whose work captures the strangeness of place and space, the changing landscapes of home, and the uncertain ground upon which her characters walk.
Lamy will read from her work at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, October 3, 2024, 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.
Juliana Lamy
Lamy’s debut collection, “You Were Watching From the Sand” (Red Hen Press, 2023,) is a dynamic, often absurd, and mystical portrait of the oddities of everyday life in Haitian Floridian culture. The collection was the winner of the 2024 Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) Firecracker Literary Award in Fiction and was long-listed for the OCM Books Prize for Caribbean Fiction and the Carol Shield Prize for Fiction.
Of the novel, author Kevin Brockmeier writes, “Every sentence Juliana Lamy writes is like a match being struck. Not many authors debut with her clarity of vision, inventiveness and verbal agility, and I would wager almost anything that You Were Watching from the Sand will mark only the first chapter in an important body of work.”
A graduate of Harvard University and the Iowa Writers Workshop, Lamy’s work has been published in Gulf Coast Magazine, Split Lip and Salon Magazine. Lamy’s collection was featured in Edwidge Danticat’s recommended reading list in Elle Magazine, and she will be spotlighted at the upcoming Maine Literary Festival and Miami Book Fair’s ReadCaribbean series.
You Were Watching From the Sand is available for pre-purchase at the University Store on the UMF campus and 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; or The Farmington Flyer, a university newspaper.
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Media Contact: Amy Neswald, UMF professor of creative writing, at amy.neswald@maine.edu.
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Image: https://www.umf.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2024/09/RP245-008A.jpg
Photo Caption: Juliana Lamy
Photo Credit: Submitted image
Image: https://www.umf.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/1/2024/09/RP245-008B.jpg
Photo Credit: Submitted image
