FARMINGTON – University of Maine at Farmington’s Bachelor of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing and the Beloit Poetry Journal, an internationally recognized poetry literary magazine in Farmington, announce a poetry workshop for aspiring writers.

Portland poet Betsy Sholl will teach the workshop from 9 a.m. to noon Saturdays, Feb. 25 and March 18, in CR-123, Olsen Student Center. Participants will read their work to the public at 4 p.m. March 18.

Sholl has twice been the recipient of Maine Artists’ Fellowships and teaches at the University of Southern Maine and in the MFA program at Vermont College. Sholl is a founding member of Alice James Books, the poetry-publishing house located on the UMF campus.

Aspiring writers who would like to work with Sholl are invited to apply for the workshop, which is limited to 12 participants and is not open to UMF students.

Applicants should send up to five pages of poetry or other writing, and a brief statement about what they hope to gain from the workshop to Poets Come to Town, Lee Sharkey, University of Maine at Farmington, 111 South St., Farmington, ME 04938. The deadline is Monday, Feb. 13.

Sholl, the first reader in UMF’s Spring Visiting Writers Series, will read from her own work at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, in the Lincoln Auditorium, UMF’s Roberts Learning Center. The reading is free and open to the public.

Sholl’s reading and workshop are made possible by a Maine Arts Commission Artists in Maine Communities Grant, which funds projects that employ Maine artists to benefit Maine communities.

Sholl has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Maine Artists’ Fellowships. Her poems have appeared in the Beloit Poetry Journal, Field, the Massachusetts Review, Indiana Review, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares and West Branch, and in several anthologies, including Letters to America, Contemporary American Poetry on Race and Boomer Girls.

For more information, contact UMF Director of Public Relations Jennifer Eriksen at 778-7081 or jennifer.eriksen@maine.edu; or UMF Associate Professor of Creative Writing Gretchen Legler at 778-7182 or gretchen.legler@maine.edu.