Scottish-born Margot Livesey, who is currently a distinguished writer in residence at Emerson College, will read from her latest novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy, this coming Tuesday, October 30, at 6:30 p.m., at the South End Library. She will be introduced by novelist Sue Miller, who invited her to The South End Writes program. Liveley has suggested that a novel, "as its name intimates, brings us news of another kind, and it is news that we vitally need, though it may not make the headlines. For what a novel does is to help us fill the abyss between the self and other." About learning the craft of writing a novel, she has said, "I had spent many happy hours in the house of fiction, but I knew nothing about plumbing or wiring or putting up drywall."

The Flight of Gemma Harding is Livesey's seventh novel and is loosely based on Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Other novels include Eva Moves the Furniture (2001) and The House on Fortune Street (2008). While writing, she has taught at Boston University, Bowdoin College, Brandeis University, Carnegie Mellon, Cleveland State, Emerson College, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Tufts University, the University of California at Irvine, the Warren Wilson College MFA program for writers, and Williams College. She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the N.E.A., the Massachusetts Artists' Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Livesey's books will be available at the reading for borrowing, purchasing and signing.