LAKEPORT >> A reading by author Jean Hegland will take place at the Mendocino College Lake Center on April 10. The program is set to begin at 2 p.m. in Room 7050. The campus is located at 2565 Parallel Drive in Lakeport. The event is free to the public.
Hegland’s first novel, “Into the Forest,” was a BookSense Reading Group Pick, a Reader’s Choice Book Club Favorite and a Book of the Month Club alternative pick. Into the Forest has been translated into 12 languages and taught in a number of community- and campus-wide reading programs. A film adaptation starring Ellen Page and Even Rachel Wood will be released in the United States this spring.
Midwest Book Review calls Hegland’s second novel, “Windfalls,” “a profound look at motherhood,” while Publishers Weekly promises it is “a good prospect for reading groups.” Excerpts from her non-fiction book, “The Life Within: Celebration of a Pregnancy,” have appeared in a junior high school science textbook, a college English textbook and a guided journal for pregnant women.
Hegland’s latest novel, “Still Time,” was released in September by Arcade/Skyhorse. In addition to receiving a starred review in Booklist, pre-publication admirers include novelist Karen Joy Fowler, who calls it a “moving, beautiful story,” novelist and philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, who says it is, “a high-wire act of literary daring,” and Shakespeare scholar David Crystal, who claims, “Still Time is a novel Shakespeare would be proud of.”
Hegland is an avid teacher and a frequent presenter at writing workshops and conferences. In addition to teaching at Santa Rosa Junior College, she has taught overseas in Sicily, England and Germany.
Lake County Friends of Mendocino College and the Friends of the Mendocino College Library, affiliates of the Mendocino College Foundation, Inc., are sponsoring the April 10 reading.
The two foundation affiliates jointly present literary programs at the Lake Center each spring and fall semester and collaborated with the Lake County Library to sponsor the opening book discussions for the Lake County Big Read last October.
For more information, call (707) 468-3051, (707) 263-4944, or visit the college website at www.mendocino.edu.
