In April, two writers will give readings from their works as part of the Visiting Writers at Colby Series. Poet Lyn Hejinian will read from "Writing Is an Aid to Memory" at 8 p.m. Monday, April 5, in the Davis Gallery of the Colby Museum of Art. Author Ron Carlson will read from his latest collection of short stories, "Plan B for the Middle Class," at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 8, in the Robinson Room of Colby's Miller Library. Both readings are open to the public and free of charge. Refreshments will be served after the readings.

Lyn Hejinian's other works include "The Cold of Poetry" and "My Life," an autobiographical work written in her 37th year, consisting of 37 sections of 37 sentences, each paralleling a year in her life. In 1983, while in the Soviet Union, Hejinian met experimentalist poet Arkadii Dragomoschenko. Their Russian-English correspondence resulted in the translations of "Description" and "Xenia." "Letters Not About Love," a film by Jacki Ochs based on the correspondence between Hejinian and Dragomoschenko, will be shown at Railroad Square Cinema in Waterville at 3:40 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, April 3 and 4.

Ron Carlson is currently a writer-in-residence at Arizona State University. He is also the author of the fiction collections "The Hotel Eden" and "The News of the World." A native of Utah, he has served as an artist-in-schools in Utah, Idaho and Alaska. While writing his two novels, "Betrayed by F. Scott Fitzgerald" and "Truants," he taught and coached at the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut.