The University of Maine at Farmington’s Visiting Writers Series will host author Jaed Coffin who will read from his work at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 27, in The Landing in the Olsen Student Center on South Street.

The free event is sponsored by the UMF Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program, according to a news release from UMF.

Coffin is the author of “Roughhouse Friday” (FSG), a memoir about the year he won the middleweight title of a barroom boxing show in Juneau, Alaska. According to a starred review by Publishers Weekly, “In measured, lucid prose, Coffin writes of fight night scenes and of the insecurity of angry young men … This is a powerful, wonderfully written exploration of one’s sense of manhood,” according to the release.

He’s also the author of “A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants” (Da Capo), which chronicles the summer he spent as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s village in Thailand.

A regular contributor to Down East Magazine, Coffin’s essays and stories have appeared in the New York Times, Nautilus, The Sun, and he’s been a storyteller for the Moth Radio Hour and TEDxPortsmouth.

He teaches creative writing at the University of New Hampshire and lives in Maine with his wife and two daughters.

For more information, contact April Mulherin, UMF associate director for media relations, at 778-7081 or [email protected].