The Iowa State Lectures Program will be hosting “The Art of Fiction: A Reading & Conversation with Margot Livesey” lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union.

Margot Livesey, an award-winning author, will have an informal moderated craft talk where writers will have the opportunity to ask questions and hear Livesey discuss her own writing process.

“Livesey grew up in a boys private school in the Scottish Highlands, where her father taught and her mother was the school nurse,” stated the Iowa State Lectures Program website. “She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and has taught writing at a number of colleges and universities. She currently teaches at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop.”

Some of Livesey’s books include: Learning by Heart, Homework, Criminals, The Missing World, Eva Moves the Furniture, Banishing Verona, The House on Fortune Street, The Flight of Gemma Hardy and Mercury, which was named a Best Book of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews and Barnes & Noble.

Her most recent book is a collection of essays on the art of writing, The Hidden Machinery. In a lecture at 2:10 p.m. Thursday in the Campanile Room of the Memorial Union Livesey will join students and faculty in the Creative Writing Program for an informal talk about her book and her writing style.

“There is no finer teacher of writing in America than Margot Livesey,” said James Magnuson, Director of the Michener Center for Writers, on the Iowa State Lectures Program website. “The young writer who spends an hour with Livesey leaves with pockets filled with nuggets of her sly intuitions. To have an entire book of her wit, wisdom and constructive suggestions is to possess the mother lode.”

Both of these events are cosponsored by the MFA Program in Creative Writing & Environment, the Pearl Hogrefe Fund and the Committee on Lectures.