The University of Maine at Farmington’s celebrated Visiting Writers Series plans to present award-winning poet Gibson Fay-LeBlanc as the program’s fourth reader of the 2021/22 season. Fay-LeBlanc will read from his work at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 10, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center, on South Street.

The reading is free and open to the public and will be followed by a book signing with the author. Reservations are required and guests must adhere to the University’s COVID safe practices, including wearing a mask at all times while inside campus buildings and social distancing when possible. Reservations can be made online at https://forms.gle/kY7iD77ZfGQjsGF68.

Fay-LeBlanc’s “Deke Dangle Dive” (CavanKerry Press, 2021) explores illness, fatherhood and masculinity through ice hockey and the natural world and considers how poems speak to us and through us when all seems lost. His poetry and prose have also been featured in the Kenyon Review, The New Republic, and Tin House, among others. His first poetry collection “Death of a Ventriloquist” won the Vassar Miller Prize.

Fay-LeBlanc is the executive director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. He earned graduate degrees from UC Berkeley and Columbia University.

“Deke Dangle Dive” is available for pre-purchase at the UMF University Store and Devaney, Doak and Garret Booksellers.

The Visiting Writer Series is sponsored by the UMF Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program.

For more information, email [email protected].