FARMINGTON — The University of Maine at Farmington’s Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program will present award-winning author Margot Livesey as the first writer in UMF’s 2013-14 Visiting Writers Series. Livesey will read from her work at 7:30 p.m. Thursday 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.

Livesey grew up on the edge of the Scottish Highlands. Her first book was a collection of stories “Learning by Heart” (Penguin Canada 1986). Her writings since then include “Homework,” “Criminals,” “The Missing World,” “Eva Moves the Furniture,” “Banishing Verona” and “The House on Fortune Street” — winner of the L.L. Winship/PEN New England award. Her most recent novel, “The Flight of Gemma Hardy,” won the New England Independent Booksellers’ Award in fiction for 2012.

She is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the N.E.A., the Massachusetts Artists Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.

She lives in Cambridge, Mass., and is a distinguished writer.