The Department of English presents a reading by novelist Michael Downs. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, Downs is the author of The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist, his debut novel from Acre Books. Earlier works include The Greatest Show: Stories, inspired by the true story of the historic Hartford Circus Fire of 1944, which killed 168 people; and House of Good Hope: A Promise for a Broken City, named a finalist in memoir for the Connecticut Book Award. He lives in Baltimore and is a professor of English at Towson University.

Book signing and refreshments will follow the reading.

The focus of the 2018–19 English Department Reading Series is on writers who actively build and sustain Baltimore’s unique literary community, with a goal is to make the arts come alive at UMBC so that literature is experienced as a vibrant, interdisciplinary form of creation, expression, and civic engagement — for everyone.

This year we are pleased to count a wide range of diverse departments as our sponsors, including Africana Studies; The English Department; The Dean of CAHSS; the Dresher Center for the Humanities; the Mosaic Center; Gender and Women’s Studies; History; Sociology and Anthropology.