Author Nafissa Thompson-Spires to visit ECC Writers Center March 15

Elgin Community College will welcome Nafissa Thompson-Spires as the next featured guest of the Writers Center Reading Series on Thursday, March 15. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Arts Center, Building H, Room H142, 1700 Spartan Drive, Elgin.

Thompson-Spires earned a Ph.D in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University of Illinois. Her work has appeared and is forthcoming in many publications, including The White Review, Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly, StoryQuarterly, Lunch Ticket and The Feminist Wire. She is a participant of the 2016 Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop and 2017 Tin House Workshop, and a 2017 Sewanee Writers' Conference Stanley Elkin Scholar.

Thompson-Spires' latest short story collection "Heads of the Colored People" was released in April 2017 with Simon and Schuster's Atria/37 Ink imprint, and later in the UK from Penguin Random House's Chatto & Windus imprint. Her debut novel is under contract with the same publishers.

All Writers Center readings are free and open to the public. A pre-reading dinner with Thompson-Spires will be held at 5:30 p.m. Books will be available for sale and signing.

Poet Tim Seibles will be the ECC Writers Center Reading Series featured guest at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 19.

For reservations or more information, contact Rachael Stewart at rstewart@elgin.edu.