Arab American author Hedy Habra will read from her new collection of poetry, Under Brushstrokes. In Under Brushstrokes, poems engage in a dialogue with the artist or his model, or offer an imagined version of what might have happened before or after the portrayed scene. Oftentimes, myths are inverted, as characters come to life to offer us their own version of legendary tales. The collection, in verse or prose, is organized by themes and recurrent imagery, as well as by the form.

Hedy Habra was born in Egypt and is of Lebanese origin. She is the author of Tea in Heliopolis, winner of the 2014 USA Best Book Award for Poetry and finalist for the International Poetry Book Award, and her collection of short fiction, Flying Carpets, won a 2013 Arab American National Book Award’s Honorable Mention. Her book of literary criticism, Mundos alternos y artísticos en Vargas Llosa, explores the visual and interartistic elements in the Peruvian novelist’s characters’ interiority. She has an M.A. and an M.F.A. in English and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Spanish literature, all from Western Michigan University, where she currently teaches. Her website is HedyHabra.com.