CAMDEN — The Camden Public Library welcomes Maine author Patricia O’Donnell for a book event featuring two of her novels, A Symmetry of Husbands and The Vigilance of Stars. This event is in-person only and will take place on Thursday, Dec. 5, at 6:30 p.m., in the Picker Room at the library.

Visit librarycamden.org to read more about each book. There will be books for sale following the event.

Patricia O’Donnell grew up in a small town in Iowa. Her BA and MA are from the University of Northern Iowa, and her MFA in Fiction is from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She and her husband, Michael Burke, raised their three children – Emma, Brendan, and Harper – in Wilton, a small town which curves around the southern end of Wilson Lake.

O’Donnell is Professor Emerita of Creative Writing at the University of Maine at Farmington, where she taught fiction writing and directed the BFA Program in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Agni Review, The North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and other journals and anthologies. Her novel, Necessary Places, was published by Cadent Publishing (now part of Tilbury House). Her memoir, Waiting to Begin, was published by Bottom Dog Press. Her collection of short fiction, Gods for Sale, won the Serena McDonald Kennedy Fiction Award.

In addition to teaching at UMF, O’Donnell has taught classes in creative writing at Colby College, the Franklin County Jail, the Maine Women’s Correctional Center, and at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa.