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CORVALLIS, Ore. - Essayist, poet and critic Maggie Nelson will read on Friday, Feb. 19, in the Valley Library Rotunda on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis.

The event will begin at 7:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public. The Valley Library is located at 201 S.W. Waldo Place, Corvallis. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow the reading.

Nelson is the author of five books of nonfiction and four books of poetry. Her most recent book, the genre-bending "The Argonauts," is a work about gender, sexuality, queer family, desire, marriage and the possibilities of love and language. The Los Angeles Times called the book "a magnificent achievement of thought, care and art." 

Nelson's 2011 book of art and cultural criticism, "The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning," was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Her other nonfiction books include "Bluets," "Women, the New York School and Other True Abstractions," and "The Red Parts: A Memoir."

Her poetry books include "Something Bright, Then Holes," "Jane: A Murder," "The Latest Winter" and "Shiner." Her poetry has been widely anthologized, including in the Best American Poetry series. Nelson has received numerous awards including a 2007 Arts Writers Grant from the Creative Capital/Andy Warhol Foundation; a 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship in nonfiction; a 2011 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in poetry; and a 2013 Innovative Literature grant from Creative Capital.

Nelson holds a doctorate in English literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and has taught literature and writing at Wesleyan University, Pratt Institute of Art and the New School Graduate Writing Program, as well as at Tinhouse Summer Writers Workshop. She now teaches at California Institute of the Arts.

The reading is part of the 2015-16 Visiting Writers Series, which is sponsored by the MFA Program in Creative Writing with support from the OSU Libraries and Press; the OSU School of Writing, Literature, and Film; the College of Liberal Arts; Kathy Brisker and Tim Steele; and Grass Roots Books and Music.