Threa Almontaser, winner of Missouri's inaugural Maya Angelou Book Award, will perform a reading of her poetry on Friday, April 22 at Southeast Missouri State University as part of the Dorothy and Wedel Nilsen Visiting Writers Series.

The free public reading will be held at 3 p.m. in the Forrest H. Rose Theatre.

Almontaser is the author of the poetry collection, “The Wild Fox of Yemen” (Graywolf Press 2021).

She is the winner of the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American poets, and the Brooklyn Public Library Literature Prize. Additionally, she is the inaugural winner of the Maya Angelou Book Award, and is longlisted for the National Book Award and Pen/Voelcker Award.

She is a recipient of writing fellowships from Duke University, the Fulbright Program and the National Endowment for the Arts. She earned a Master of Fine Arts and Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) certification from North Carolina State University. She is currently working on her first novel. 

The Nilsen Visiting Writer Program brings successful writers to Southeast Missouri State University each semester to talk with students about the crafts of writing and editing. Events are sponsored by the Southeast Missouri State University Press and Southeast’s Department of English. 

**At the request of the poet, face coverings and social distancing will be required.