FARMINGTON — The University of Maine at Farmington will host

, as the first reader in its 2014-15 Visiting Writers Series. Gessner will read at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 25, in The Landing in the UMF Student Center. This event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a signing by the author.

Gessner is the author of nine books, including “The Tarball Chronicles,” which won the 2012 Reed Award for Best Book on the Southern Environment and the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment’s award for best book of creative writing in 2011 and 2012. He also is the author of “Wallace Stegner and the American West,” “Return of the Osprey,” “Sick of Nature,” “My Green Manifesto” and the forthcoming “All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey.”

Gessner is currently a professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where he founded the award-winning literary journal of place, Ecotone.