The Charlotte Hobbs Library Speaker Series welcomes Gillian Burnes, author of “Soft Features,” as its first speaker of 2024 for a Zoom-only talk at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 18, at the Charlotte Hobbs Library in Lovell.

“Soft Features,” Burnes’ first novel, is a finalist for the 2023 Maine Literary Award for fiction. Set in 1994 in a fictional Maine town, the novel tells the story of an overly empathetic national public radio journalist whose attempts to find cheerful stories, or soft features, take her on a series of misadventures.

Burnes’s stories have appeared in Glimmer Train and The Dillydoun Review, and her non-fiction work has appeared in Outside, OnEarth, Wilderness, and other magazines.

She lives with her husband and daughter on the edge of her in-laws’ organic cattle farm in central Maine.

The Charlotte Hobbs Library is located at 227 Main St., Lovell. For more information and the link to join, go to hobbslibrary.org or contact the Charlotte Hobbs Memorial Library at 207-925-3177.