This episode is the continuation of the Stonecoast MFA Faculty “flash reading” from the winter residency in January 2009, in which each writer gets three minutes in which to share his or her work before introducing the next writer in the queue.
The first reader is Richard Hoffman, who writes in multiple genres and here shares both a short short, “Phototaxis,” and two poems, “A Good While” and “Watching.” Fantasy fiction writer Nancy Holder reads a short story about the character Zorro, and Charles Martin reads his poem “Poison.” April Ossman closed the reading with two poems, “Whose Fragile Lips” and “The Name of the Mold,” from her collection Anxious Music.
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.
Gray Jacobik is author of three collections of poetry: The Double Task (University of Massachusetts Press), winner of the Juniper Prize, nominated for the James Laughlin Award and The Poet’s Prize; The Surface of Last Scattering (Texas Review Press), winner of the X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize; and Brave Disguises (University of Pittsburgh Press), winner of the AWP Poetry Series Award for 2001. Gray served as the 2002 Poet-in-Residence at The Frost Place and is a Professor Emeritus at Eastern Connecticut State University. She is also an accomplished painter.
This reading took place in Freeport, Maine, during the winter residency of the Stonecoast MFA program in January, 2009. As always, we welcome your feedback on the reading.
“Weaving History and Literature: the African American Oral and Written Tradition” brought five writers together to read from their work and discuss how African American history is revealed through storytelling and literature. The speakers were JerriAnne Boggis, founder and director of the Harriet Wilson Project; Kate Clifford Larson, biographer of Harriet Tubman; novelists Michael C. White and David Anthony Durham; and poet Patricia Smith. Biographies of the speakers are available here; download the walking tour map of the Portland Freedom Trail in PDF format here.
This event was held at the Portland Museum of Art on July 11, 2008. We welcome your feedback.
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.
Shara McCallum is the author of two poetry collections, The Water Between Us (University of Pittsburgh, 1999, winner of the 1998 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize) and Song of Thieves (University of Pittsburgh, 2003). McCallum was born in Jamaica, where she lived until she was nine with Afro-Jamaican and Venezuelan parents. She directs the Stadler Center for Poetry at Bucknell University. Here, she is introduced by fellow poet Charles Martin.
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 Shara McCallum podcast.
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.
