The 50th event will feature Sharon Dilworth, an author originally from metro Detroit whose writing “explores the small tragedies and resonance of lives underway.” She fell in love with Marquette as an Northern Michigan University undergrad and her life has never been the same since.

The event will be at 6 p.m. Thursday on Zoom. To attend, contact librarian Evelyn Gathu in advance at egathu@crystalfallslibrary.org, or by phone at 906-875-3344. They recommend borrowing a copy of these books from the local library or purchasing them from a local bookseller in advance to get the most out of these events.

Dilworth is an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose work is deeply rooted in place, memory, and transformation. A graduate of Northern Michigan University, she now teaches creative writing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. She is the author of three acclaimed story collections– “The Long White,” “Women Drinking Benedictine,” and “Two Sides, Three Rivers” — as well as the novels “Year of the Ginkgo,” “My Riviera” and “To Be Marquette” (CMU Press).

Her fiction has been recognized with the Iowa Short Fiction Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. In “To Be Marquette,” Dilworth draws on her own college years in the Upper Peninsula, weaving a heartfelt coming-of-age story of friendship, identity, and environmental activism against the breathtaking backdrop of Lake Superior.

Arriving in Marquette for her freshman year at NMU, Molly enrolls in Dr. Robinson’s ecology studies class, hoping to learn more about the natural world and how to protect the planet from human impact. She befriends her classmates, Dr. Robinson’s “Crusoes,” who share her love of hiking, camping, and building bonfires on the shores of Lake Superior.

Together, Molly and the Crusoes protest the development of Project ELF, a Navy program that is installing a series of extremely low-frequency transmitters across the Great Lakes. The U.S. government claims Project ELF will help the country defend itself in the event of a nuclear invasion, but U.P. residents fear the communications lines will disrupt the natural environment that they hold sacred.

Initially preoccupied with the contingencies of freshman year — roommate problems, dormitory life, and dating — Molly begins to sense that the Project ELF protests may mask a more problematic dynamic between the students and faculty. As she struggles to find her purpose, Molly uncovers layers of lies and misunderstandings about campus life, Project ELF, and her time in Marquette that make her question her place in the community.

As in other notable campus novels, like Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” or Elif Batuman’s “The Idiot,” Dilworth’s “To Be Marquette” portrays an undergraduate narrator groping for meaning in a world where personal transformation takes place alongside conflicting cultural paradigms.

More information about the U.P. Notable Book list, U.P. Book Review, and UPPAA can be found on www.UPNotable.com.