FARMINGTON—The University of Maine at Farmington’s celebrated Visiting Writers Series opens the new academic year with a reading by author, journalist and professor Debra Spark. Spark will read from her work at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 21, in The Landing in the Olsen Student Center. 

Spark is the author of five books of fiction, most recently “Unknown Caller,” that Kirkus Review called “A book of candor and complexity that captures human relations with heart-rending accuracy.” 

Her work also includes “The Pretty Girl,” “Good for the Jews,” “Curious Attractions,” “The Ghost of Bridgetown,” “Coconuts for the Saint” and “Twenty Under Thirty.”

Spark is also a senior writer for Maine Home + Design—a shelter magazine for which she writes a monthly feature on homes in Maine.

Spark has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, Bunting Institute fellowship from Radcliffe College, Pushcart Prize, Michigan Literary Fiction Award and John Zacharis/Ploughshares award for best first book.

A graduate of Yale University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she is a professor at Colby College and teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She lives with her husband and son in North Yarmouth.