National Book Award Finalist and bestselling author Bonnie Jo Campbell will read from her fierce, mesmerizing novel about exceptional women and the soul of a small town, The Waters.  “Campbell has been exploring hardship, especially the hardships that independent and exploratory women have to work through, for most of her writing career. She knows that unexpected misfortunes have to be put up with, and the question is always whether to do it your own way or to give in to the people around you and embark on a life you do not want…The Waters is a thought-provoking and readable exploration of eccentricity and of all different kinds of love―familial love, romantic love, love of knowledge, love of animals and love of one’s own environment, even when it is a difficult place to live.”― Jane Smiley

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of six works of fiction, including American Salvage, finalist for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Once Upon a River, a national bestseller. Her fiction has recently been published in Southern Review, Kenyon Review, Alaska Review, Boulevard, and Witness. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, AWP’s Grace Paley Prize for Short Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize, she lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan, with donkeys.