FREEPORT – National Book Award nominee Patricia Smith and Colin Sargent, founding editor and publisher of Portland Magazine, will take part in a public reading Friday, Jan. 9, at the Harraseeket Inn.

The event, called “Stonecoast at the Harraseeket,” will begin at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Smith is a new member of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast M.F.A. in creative writing faculty. Colin Sargent is a Stonecoast alumnus.

A four-time National Poetry Slam champion, Smith’s latest volume of poetry, “Blood Dazzler,” a book of poems inspired by Hurricane Katrina, was nominated for the 2008 National Book Award.

Smith is a National Poetry Series winner and recipient of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and Paterson Poetry Prize. She is also a Pushcart Prize recipient and has appeared on HBO’s “Def Poetry Jam.”

Besides his work at Portland Magazine, Sargent is a playwright and author of three books of poetry and a novel. He was awarded the Maine Individual Artist Fellowship in Literature, and his screenplay “Montebello Ice” is under option at Gideon Films. His first novel, “Museum of Human Beings,” was released this month.

For more information, call 780-5262.

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