Home JMU professor Sofia Samatar to read from Opacities book Saturday
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JMU professor Sofia Samatar to read from Opacities book Saturday

Crystal Graham
sofia samatar
sofia samatar

New Dominion Bookshop will host a book talk and signing with author and James Madison University professor Sofia Samatar on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 7 p.m.

Samatar will be speaking about her new creative writing craft book, Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life, which was released from Soft Skull Press in August.

A conversation with author and University of Virginia professor Emily Ogden will follow.

This in-person event is free to attend and open to the public.

Opacities is a book about writing, publishing and friendship. Rooted in an epistolary relationship between Samatar and a friend and fellow writer, this collection of meditations traces an attempt to rediscover the intimacy of writing.

Samatar is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, including the memoir The White Mosque, a PEN/Jean Stein Award finalist. Her works range from the award–winning novel A Stranger in Olondria to Tone, a study of literary tone with Kate Zambreno.

Samatar is the Roop Distinguished Professor of English at JMU, where she teaches African literature, Arabic literature and speculative fiction.

Ogden is a professor of English at UVA. She is the author of On Not Knowing: How to Love and Other Essays (University of Chicago Press). She is working on Frailties, a book about Edgar Allan Poe.

New Dominion Bookshop is located at 404 E. Main St. in Charlottesville.

For more information, visit ndbookshop.com.

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Crystal Graham

Crystal Graham

A 1999 graduate of Virginia Tech, Crystal Graham has worked for 25 years as a reporter and editor for several Virginia publications, written a book, and garnered more than a dozen Virginia Press Association awards for writing and graphic design. She was the co-host of "Viewpoints," a weekly TV news show, and co-host of "Virginia Tonight," a nightly TV news show, both broadcast on PBS. Her work on "Virginia Tonight" earned her a national Telly award for excellence in television. You can reach her at [email protected]

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