Fiction writer Meghan Gillis will be the fourth reader of the 2023/24 season for the celebrated Visiting Writers Series at the University of Maine at Farmington. Gillis will read from her work at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 8, 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.

Gillis’ debut novel “Lungfish” is a lyrical and haunting story of motherhood, addiction and how the present is tangled in the web of the past on a small island on the coast of Maine. “Lungfish” was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award for Fiction, Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice.

Kirkus Review calls Gillis “an extraordinary writer; passages of her debut novel read like poetry, and others read like a lyric essay, making use of surprising juxtaposition and association…”  Writer Paul Yoon writes “Lungfish is a force of nature – a deeply felt marvel of a book that navigates grief, parenthood and the mysteries of family with unrelenting power and precisions… Here is storytelling at its best.”

Gillis’ work has appeared in New Letters, North by Northeast and Salamander, among others. She holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and has been, among other things, a journalist, a bookstore owner, an outreach librarian and a pandemic-era nursing unit secretary.

Lungfish is available for pre-purchase at the UMF University Store and Devany, Doak, and Garret Booksellers in Farmington.

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.

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