Maine Humanities Council

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 [ 42:22 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4147)

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.

Standard Podcast [ 24:28 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3351)

Colin Sargent is a playwright and author of three books of poetry. A graduate of the United States Naval Academy, he earned a Stonecoast MFA in creative writing and was awarded the Maine individual artist fellowship in literature. His screenplay “Montebello Ice” is under option at Gideon Films. Sargent is founding editor and publisher of award-winning Portland Magazine, as well as a board member of the literacy organization Maine Reads. As a guest reader for the Stonecoast program, he read from his first novel, Museum of Human Beings. Stonecoast alumnus and faculty member Jaed Coffin introduced the reading.

This reading took place in Freeport, Maine, during the winter residency of the Stonecoast MFA program in January, 2009. Stonecoast is the low-residency MFA program in creative writing at the University of Southern Maine. We welcome your feedback on the reading.

Colin Sargent [ 36:14 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4273)

The 2008 Douglas M. Schair Memorial Lecture on Genocide and Human Rights was a dialogue for Muslim-Jewish understanding, presented in cooperation with the Islamic Society of Portland and the Jewish Community Alliance of Southern Maine. The featured speakers were Judea Pearl and Akbar Ahmed. Pearl, a computer scientist from Israel, and Ahmed, a social scientist from Pakistan, share a concern about the deterioration of relationships between Muslim and Jewish communities around the world. They have become partners in a dialogue project in memory of Pearl’s son, journalist Daniel Pearl, under the auspices of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. Through their public dialogue, they aim to inspire ongoing conversations in the communities they visit that are similarly honest and respectful. They were recognized for this project in 2006, with the first annual Purpose Prize.

The Schair Memorial Lecture took place at the University of Southern Maine in Portland on April 7, 2008. We welcome your feedback.

Beyond the Clash of Civilizations [ 1:32:21 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (7499)

Nalo Hopkinson is one of the world’s best known fantasy and science fiction writers. She is the author of four novels (most recently The New Moon’s Arms, Warner, 2007) and numerous short stories, and editor or co-editor of several anthologies, including So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future (Arsenal Pulp Press, 2004). Hopkinson was born in Jamaica and lived in the Caribbean until the age of 17, when her family moved to Toronto. Here, she is introduced by fellow science fiction writer Michaela Roessner Herman.

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 Nalo Hopkinson podcast.

Nalo Hopkinson [ 30:53 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3699)

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.

Alison Hawthorne Deming [ 33:53 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (4068)