Chris Bohjalian is the author of eleven novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Double Bind, Before You Know Kindness, The Law of Similars, and Midwives. Bohjalian won the New England Book Award in 2002. His work has been translated into 25 languages and has sold over three and a half million copies. He lives in Vermont, where he has been a Sunday columnist for the Burlington Free Press since 1992. In this excerpt from his reading in Portland, Bohjalian comments on the state of reading in the U.S., shares an anecdote from a previous book tour, and explains the inspiration for his World War II love story, Skeletons at the Feast.
A Coastal Companion: A Year in the Gulf of Maine, from Canada to Cape Cod (Tilbury House, 2008) is part field guide, part almanac; a celebration of the natural world that also highlights people who have chosen the Gulf of Maine as the setting for their life’s work. Poems by contemporary Maine poets open each chapter, and illustrations by two Maine artists, Kimberleigh Martul-March and Margaret Campbell, are featured throughout the text. Author Catherine Schmitt, a science writer for the Maine Sea Grant College Program, opens this reading with an excerpt from the book, then introduces contributor Annaliese Jakimides (pictured at right) for a poetry reading.
This reading took place at Borders in South Portland on July 22, 2008. We welcome your feedback.
Alison Hawthorne Deming is the author of three books of poetry, three nonfiction books, and two limited-edition chapbooks. Her place-based writing has earned her fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown , the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the Tucson/Pima Arts Council; as well as many awards, including the Bayer Award in science writing from Creative Nonfiction for the essay “Poetry and Science: A View from the Divide.” Deming was born and raised in Connecticut, but currently lives near Aqua Caliente Hill in Tucson, where she serves as Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Arizona. Here, she is introduced by Stonecoast faculty member Barbara Hurd.
This reading took place in Brunswick, Maine, during the summer residency of the Stonecoast MFA program in July, 2008. Stonecoast is the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at the University of Southern Maine.We welcome your feedback on this Alison Hawthorne Deming podcast.
Michael C. Connolly and Kevin Stoehr are the editors of John Ford in Focus, a collection of essays that offers a comprehensive examination of Ford’s life and career, revealing the frequent intersections between Ford’s personal life and artistic vision, including his roots in Portland. Stoehr is associate professor of humanities at Boston University and lives in Boston, Massachusetts. Connolly teaches History and Political Science at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine. He is the author of They Change Their Sky: The Irish in Maine.
Penelope Schwartz Robinson, a 2004 Stonecoast graduate in Creative Nonfiction, won the first Stonecoast Book Award for her essay collection Slippery Men. She received an honorarium and a publishing contract with New Rivers Press, a teaching press at Minnesota State University, Morehead. Slippery Men will be published and distributed nationally in the fall of 2008. Robinson’s work has already appeared in Ascent, Willow Springs, Fourth Genre, and River Teeth, among others. At this reading, Robinson, who currently teaches nonfiction writing at the University of Maine, Farmington, was introduced by finalist judge Katha Pollitt.
This reading took place in Freeport, Maine, during the winter residency of the Stonecoast MFA program in January, 2008. Stonecoast is the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at the University of Southern Maine. We welcome your feedback on this reading.
Hannah Holmes took a geology class at the University of Southern Maine that led to a career as a science writer, someone who turns the facts of science into stories, sometimes mysteries, with exciting plots and intriguing characters. She has toured the world for Discovery, making the complexities of science comprehensible, and scientists comprehensibly human as well. Much nearer home, she studied her backyard in Suburban Safari: A Year on the Lawn (Bloomsbury, 2005). Her newest book is The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself (Random House, 2009).
This interview with Hannah Holmes by Charlotte Albright was included in the Council’s 30th Anniversary ‘Maine Writers Speak’ project. We welcome your feedback.
Please be aware that the content in these audio files does not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or policies of the Maine Humanities Council or any organization with which the Maine Humanities Council is affiliated. Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in the podcast do not necessarily reflect those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Chris Bohjalian is the author of eleven novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Double Bind, Before You Know Kindness, The Law of Similars, and Midwives. Bohjalian won the New England Book Award in 2002. His work has been translated into 25 languages and has sold over three and a half million copies. He lives in Vermont, where he has been a Sunday columnist for the Burlington Free Press since 1992. In this excerpt from his reading in Portland, Bohjalian comments on the state of reading in the U.S., shares an anecdote from a previous book tour, and explains the inspiration for his World War II love story, Skeletons at the Feast.
