Jacques Rancourt Submitted photo

The University of Maine at Farmington’s Visiting Writers Series is scheduled to present award-winning poet and UMF alumnus Jacques Rancourt as the program’s second reader of the season.

Rancourt will read from his work at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 13, in The Landing in the UMF Olsen Student Center, South Street.

The reading is free and open to the public and will be followed by a book signing with the author, according to a news release from April Mulherin, UMF Associate Director for Media Relations.

Rancourt’s “Brocken Spectre” examines the way the past presses up against the present, the ethics of memory and the dangers of romanticizing tragedy. “Brocken Spectre” was a 2019 Alice James Books Award Editor’s Choice.

Rancourt’s debut collection “Novena” was awarded the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize in 2017. His work as also been featured in Agni, Boston Review, Georgia Review, and the New England Review.

Rancourt is a graduate of the University of Maine at Farmington’s B.F.A. program in Creative Writing. He went on after graduation to earn the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University as well as a Halls Emerging Artist Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, a Cite International des Arts residency and scholarships from the Bread Loaf Sewanee Writers’ Conferences.

He has traveled extensively internationally. As a first generation college graduate, he attributes his professional career to his UMF mentors and liberal arts experience. He is teaching English at a private school in California.

“Brocken Spectre” is available at the UMF University Store and Devany, Doak, and Garret Booksellers.

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

For more information, contact Amy Neswald, UMF professor of creative writing, at 207-778-8024, or amy.nesald@maine.edu.

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