Margot Livesey, Jonathan Goldsmith Visiting Author at the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, will present a free reading at 8 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 28, in the Frank Conroy Reading Room of the Glenn Schaeffer Library, adjacent to the Dey House.

Livesey grew up in a boys' private school in the Scottish Highlands where her father taught and her mother, Eva, was the school nurse. After receiving a Bachelor of Arts in English and philosophy at the University of York in England, she spent most of her twenties working in shops and restaurants and learning to write. Her first book, a collection of stories called Learning By Heart, was published by Penguin Canada in 1986. Since then Livesey has published seven novels; the latest, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, was published by HarperCollins in 2012.

Livesey has taught at Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon, Cleveland State, Emerson College, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Tufts University, the University of California at Irvine, the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers, and Williams College. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Artists' Foundation, and the Canada Council for the Arts.

For more information or special accommodations to attend this reading, contact the Writers' Workshop at 319-335-0416.

The Iowa Writers’ Workshop is a graduate program in the University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. For a UI arts calendar and details about upcoming events visit the new Arts Iowa website.