Maine Humanities Council

Denise Pendleton, Maine Humanities Council’s Program Director of Born To Read and poet, sat down at the Belfast Free Library with two of Maine’s best-known poets, Elizabeth Garber and Dawn Potter. In addition to reading from their memoirs, the poets spoke about why they turned to prose and how their poetry background has influenced their current writing. Elizabeth W. Garber is the author of two collections of poetry and is currently writing a memoir, The Architect’s Daughter, about growing up in a modern glass house in the 1960’s. Her chapter “Stones” won the Maine Writer’s and Publishers Alliance 2009 Literary Award for unpublished Non-Fiction.  She was voted 2009 Best Writer in Waldo County in a Reader’s Poll conducted by The Village Soup/Republican Journal. Dawn Potter is the author of two collections of poetry and, most recently, a memoir, Tracing Paradise: Two Years in Harmony with John Milton. It recounts her project of copying out every word of John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost while living an everyday life in the central Maine town of Harmony. According to writer Sam Pickering “Potter writes beautifully. . . . [Her book] made me ponder my life as well as literature, as a good book should but few books do.”

 

 Poets Writing Memoir: A Conversation with Elizabeth Garber and Dawn Potter [78:14m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1086)

Ann Hood is the author, most recently, of The Knitting Circle and Comfort: A Journey Through Grief. Both new books deal with the loss of her 5-year old daughter, one through fiction and one through memoir. In this talk, she compares the two approaches and recalls episodes—both tragic and very, very funny—from her life. Hood is the author of seven other novels and a collection of short stories.

This talk by Ann Hood took place at the Maine Festival of the Book, sponsored by Maine Reads, on April 4, 2009.

 

 Ann Hood [51:05m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (533)

One of the highlights of each 10-day residency in the Stonecoast MFA program is the “flash reading” by faculty members. Each writer gets three minutes in which to share his or her work before introducing the next writer in the queue.

The flash reading from the winter residency in January 2009 began with Jaed Coffin reading an excerpt from his memoir, A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants. The next reader was David Durham, who read from his forthcoming novel The Other Land. Annie Finch shared one poem from her collection Calendars, and another from her new manuscript, American Witch. Poet Jeffrey Harrison read “Ivan Ilyich at the Lake” and “Shaking Off the Snow.” This reading continues in the next episode of the podcast.

 

 Jaed Coffin [4:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (263)

 

 David Durham [4:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (133)

 

 Annie Finch [5:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (136)

 

 Jeffrey Harrison [4:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (132)

Michael Steinberg is a memoirist and the founding editor of the award-winning literary journal Fourth Genre: Explorations in Nonfiction. His latest book, Still Pitching, was chosen by ForeWord Magazine as the 2003 Small and Independent Press memoir/autobiography of the year. Other books include Peninsula: Essays and Memoirs from Michigan, The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers Of/On Creative Nonfiction (now in its third edition), and Those Who Do, Can: Teachers Writing, Writers Teaching (the latter two with Robert Root). Steinberg is the recipient of The Missouri Review Editor’s Prize, a Roberts Writing Award, the Harness Race Writers of America award for feature writing, and a Writer’s Voice Residency/Fellowship. His essays and memoirs have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and have been cited several times in Best American Essays and Best American Sports Writing.

This reading took place in Freeport, Maine, during the winter residency of the Stonecoast MFA program in January, 2009.

 

 Standard Podcast [42:22m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (389)

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas was nineteen when her father took his family to live among the Bushmen of the Kalahari. Fifty years later, after a life of writing and study, Thomas returns to her experiences in The Old Way: A Story of the First People. She recalls life with the Bushmen, one of the last hunter-gatherer societies on earth, and discovers among them an essential link to the origins of all human society. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas is the author of many books, including The Hidden Life of Dogs. She lives in Peterborough, New Hampshire.

This reading was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, sponsored by Martin’s Point Health Care. We welcome your feedback on this Elizabeth Marshall Thomas podcast.

 

 Elizabeth Marshall Thomas [52:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (483)

Six years ago, at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin left New England’s privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s native village of Panomsarakram—thus fulfilling a familial obligation. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, his debut book A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (Da Capo Press, 2009) chronicles his time at the temple. Jaed Coffin holds a B.A. in philosophy from Middlebury College and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Writing Program. A boxer, sea-kayaker, and lobster fisherman, he lives in Brunswick, Maine. In this recording, he is introduced by Shonna Milliken Humphrey, Executive Director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

This reading was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, sponsored by Martin’s Point Health Care. We welcome your feedback on this Jaed Coffin podcast.

 

 Jaed Coffin [55:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (394)