CANTON -- Widely acclaimed author Jeff Parker will be the first guest to visit SUNY Canton for the spring installment of the popular Living Writing Series.

Parker will appear at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, in the Richard W. Miller Campus Center's Kingston Theater. The event is free and open to anyone.

His latest book, "Where Bears Roam the Streets," has earned high critical praise, and Maclean's magazine drew comparisons between his writing and that of the late Kurt Vonnegut.

"Jeff Parker is one of the most prolific and promising writers of his generation," said SUNY Canton Assistant Professor of English Phil K. LaMarche. "His stories have a mind of their own and always take the reader into the humorous and sometimes uncomfortable realm of the unexpected."

"Where Bears Roam the Streets" is a memoir of Parker's unlikely friendship with a Perestroika-generation Russian bartender, Igor, while studying in St. Petersburg. The author tells the story of contemporary Russia though his friendship with Igor and their travels together across the country.

He is also the author of "The Taste of Penny," a collection of short stories, and "Ovenman," a comedic coming-of-age story.

Parker is the director of creative writing at the University of Tampa and is a faculty member with the University of Massachusetts Amherst Master of Fine Arts program.

LaMarche created the Living Writers Series in 2012 to coincide with his Living Writers Course. Students enrolled in the class read the books by the authors scheduled to visit the college.

The next guest speaker will be author Theresa Brown at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 23, which is cosponsored by Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center and Hospice of St. Lawrence Valley. Poet Erica Dawson will appear at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 27.

For more information about the Living Writers Series, visit www.canton.edu/writers.