Nonfiction writer Sarah Sentilles will read at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26 in the Valley Library Rotunda on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Nonfiction writer Sarah Sentilles will read at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 26 in the Valley Library Rotunda on the Oregon State University campus in Corvallis. A question-and-answer session and book signing will follow.

Sentilles is a writer, critical theorist, religious scholar and teacher whose work investigates the roles languages, images and practices play in oppression, violence, social transformation and justice movements.

Her most recent book, “Draw Your Weapons,” published by Random House in 2017, combines memoir, history, reporting, visual culture, literature and theology to investigate questions of war, violence, peace and compassion. The book was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2017 by the Chicago Review of Books.

Sentilles’ other books include “Taught by America: A Story of Struggle and Hope in Compton,” “A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit” and “Breaking Up with God: A Love Story.”

Her writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Oprah Magazine, Ms., Religion Dispatches, Oregon ArtsWatch and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among other publications.

Sentilles is also the co-founder of the Immigration Alliance of Idaho and has taught at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland State University, California State University Channel Islands and Willamette University, where she was the Mark and Melody Teppola Presidential Distinguished Visiting Professor.

She holds a bachelor of arts from Yale and masters and doctoral degrees from Harvard.

The reading is part of the 2018-2019 Visiting Writers Series, which brings nationally acclaimed writers to Oregon State University. The series is sponsored by the MFA Program in Creative Writing at OSU, with support from the OSU Libraries and Press, the OSU School of Writing, Literature, and Film, the College of Liberal Arts, Kathy Brisker and Tim Steele and Grass Roots Books and Music.

The event is free and open to the public. The Valley Library is located at 201 SW Waldo Place, Corvallis.