CANTON -- The final guest of SUNY Canton's 2015 Living Writers Series challenges perceptions of what it means to be a Native American woman in her first poetry collection.

Jennifer Foerster will appear at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 19, in the Richard W. Miller Campus Center's Kingston Theater. The event is free and open to the public.

She is the author of "Leaving Tulsa," which was described by NPR's News Poet Tess Taylor as "sensuous, generous, full of beginnings and endings ..." The book also received praise from The Huffington Post's Cultural Critic Dean Rader and was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award.

"Foerster's poetry weaves striking stories of the Native American past with present-day characters and settings. Her work is both haunting and beautiful," said SUNY Canton Assistant Professor of English Phil K. LaMarche. "Please help us celebrate Native American Heritage Month with a reading and discussion of her work."

Foerster is of German, Dutch and Muscogee descent and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) nation of Oklahoma. Her poems have appeared in "Sing: Poetry from the Indigenous Americas," "New California Writing 2011" and "Turtle Island to Abya Yala." She resides in San Francisco and is pursuing a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing at the University of Denver.

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 series will resume in 2016.

More info: visit www.canton.edu/writers