The Bailey Public Library in downtown Winthrop will host Kerri Arsenault at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, July 28, in the King Event Room on the first floor of the library at 39 Bowdoin St. The event is the seventh part of a yearlong series celebrating Maine women that will run through 2021.

Arsenault will give a presentation that focuses on her new book “Mill Town,” one of O Magazine’s Best Books of 2020, a finalist for the 2020 National Book Critics Prize for Best First Book, and the winner of the Maine Literary Award for nonfiction.

The book examines the rise and collapse of the working-class of Mexico and Rumford and the area’s social and environmental plight.

Arsenault grew up in Mexico and structures the book as a memoir, interweaving the story of the mill with that of her Acadian family, who have lived in the area for generations.

Arsenault received an Master of Fine Arts degree from the New School, studied in the Master Programme in communication for development at Malmö University, Sweden, and received a bachelor of arts degree from Beloit College. She also served as a mentor for PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program.

Admission is free and open to the public.

For more information, call the library at 207-377-8673.

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