FARMINGTON — Sarah Braunstein, whose work “The Sweet Relief of Missing Children” was praised by O Magazine as “enthralling,” is the next reader in University of Maine at Farmington’s popular Visiting Writers Series. Presented by UMF’s distinguished Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program, Braunstein will read from her work at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 7, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center. The reading is free and-open-to-the-public and will be followed by a signing by the author.

“The Sweet Relief of Missing Children” is a suspenseful novel that explores the power of running and the desire for reinvention. It was the winner of the 2012 Maine Literary Award and finalist for the 2011 Flaherty-Dunnan First Nobel Prize from the Center for Fiction. She was named one of “5 Under 35” fiction writers by the National Book Foundation in 2010 and received the Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award in 2007.

A play titled “String Theory: Three Greek Myths Woven Together,” which Braunstein co-wrote with Michael Barakiva and Amy Boyce Holtcamp, was produced in New York City in 2009 and at Vassar College in 2010.

Braunstein teaches at Harvard University Extension School and Summer School, the Stanford University Online Writer’s Studio and in the low-residency MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Currently, she is a visiting professor at Colby College.