Maine Humanities Council

This weekend, I attended the Maine Festival of the Book, which was organized by Maine Reads, a non-profit dedicated to promoting increased literacy in Maine. The Maine Humanities Council has given the book festival small grants for several years. This is the first year I had an opportunity to attend, as a new board member for Maine Reads, and I am glad that I did.  This is a too-little known Maine gem. All but one event was free to the public, and the fee for the opening presentations by authors Tess Gerritsen and Anita Shreve was nominal. I recorded each of the talks that I attended for MHC’s collection of podcasts.

At Friday night’s opening, Maine author Tess Gerritsen spoke about the evolution of a character from her imagination, to paper, to a novel, and, now, to television (her Rizzoli and Isles suspense novels are now being made into a television series). She was very engaging. Anita Shreve read selections from four different novels set at the same beach in Maine (although to allow herself freedom to change details about the beach, she has set it in New Hampshire). The selections were compelling, haunting, and included characters whose only link was this beach.

Early on Saturday morning, I was delighted to hear Rhea Cote Robbins read from her work and that of Trudy Chambers Price (who unfortunately had a family emergency and could not be there in person). I left Rhea’s presentation (called “Franco-American Women’s Words in Maine”) filled with thoughts of lilacs, mills, perseverance, language, family, the importance of community and culture, and images of Maine’s sacred spring ritual of visiting a secret fiddlehead patch and preparing these tender young fronds. Rhea encouraged those in the audience to share their own stories, and I was honored to hear about people’s  experience in the mills and efforts to preserve their culture. I also learned that you can use a clothes dryer set to no heat to clean fiddleheads, and a dishwasher to cook salmon… Anne Heller, author of The Reawakening of Ayn Rand, presented on the novelist and philosopher’s  work and its popularity today. Three quarters of the large audience had read Rand’s work and asked thoughtful questions about her philosophy and its connection with politics in the past and today. When asked if she would have liked Rand, Heller answered no but that did not matter; she emphasized Rand’s brilliance, lasting influence (although many political thinkers praising her today are selective in what they choose  from her philosophy), and utter indifference to the opinions of others.

A presentation by three authors who re-shaped old stories was entertaining and thought provoking. Nicole Chaison was inspired by Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey to tell her own hero’s journey as a mother and an author in the form of a modern-day illuminated manuscript/ graphic novel, The Passion of the Hausfrau. It is thoughtful, funny, and clever. Debra Spark was inspired to write a loose version of the Book of Esther after realizing that there was more to the story than she remembered, and these unremembered details disturbed her and connected with current events. Elizabeth Searle’s turning of a tabloid story to rock opera (i.e.- the drama of Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan) made me question, again, our collective fascination with celebrities and, particularly, their downfall. And finally,  a fantastic, edgy, engaging theatrical performance by Hardy Girls, Healthy Women was greeted enthusiastically by a standing room only crowd at the North Star Cafe. The performance, “That Takes Ovaries! Bold Females and Their Brazen Acts” was based on a book of real-life stories from women and girls. The performers were wonderful, and the stories they told were engaging, moving, thoughtful, heartbreaking,  funny, encouraging, good-hearted, and powerful. People in the audience were invited to share their own stories, and some did. It was wonderful.

There were other great presentations at the book festival that I could not attend- a popular cartooning workshop by Jay Piscopo, talks on Maine history by Neil Rolde and Earl Shettleworth, recent poems by Maine poet Wes McNair, and more. We will post the podcasts of talks I attended within the next few weeks- the next best thing to being there! Look for the book festival next year.

Contributed by MHC Program Officer Lizz Sinclair