Alice N. Persons, founder of Moon Pie Press, is a sometime English teacher and an adjunct instructor of business law at the University of Southern Maine. A Maine resident since 1983, she volunteers for animal welfare organizations and also works with Port Veritas, a spoken word collective in Portland. Six of her poems have been featured on Garrison Keillor’s The Writer’s Almanac on NPR. Her first two chapbooks were Be Careful What You Wish For (2003) and Never Say Never (2004); in June 2007, Sheltering Pines Press published her third, Don't Be A Stranger.

Michael Macklin of Portland works as a carpenter, edits reviews for the Cafe Review, and dreams of spending time at the ancient monastery of the island of Sceilig Mhichil off the west coast of Ireland. He received his MFA from Vermont College. He has published poems in the Cafe Review, The Aurorean, Animus, Rattle and other journals, and several anthologies. He owes a great deal to the support of his wife Donna and his son Gabriel, a hip-hop DJ.

Kevin Sweeney has degrees from California (PA) State College and the University of Massachusetts. He is the chair of the English Department at Southern Maine Community College in South Portland, where he has been for more than twenty years. He is a native of Pittsburgh and dreams of retiring someday to be an old gringo in Mexico, watching Steelers games via satellite. Kevin lives in South Portland with his wife and pets. He has been on a diet, with lapses, for 46 years.

Patricia Hagge and Annie Finch opened the library’s 2008 Poetry Festival with this reading. Hagge earned her MFA from the Stonecoast MFA program. She serves on the boards of SPACE Gallery and The Telling Room. Finch, who directs the Stonecoast program, is a professor of English at the University of Southern Maine.

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.

Martha Tod Dudman’s first novel, Black Olives, turns her unflinching candor and sharp wit on reconstructing the end of a love affair. Dudman is the author of the powerful memoirs Augusta, Gone (which was adapted into an award-winning Lifetime Television movie) and Expecting to Fly. A professional fundraiser, Dudman lives in Northeast Harbor with her son and daughter. She has lived in Maine since 1975.

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.

In addition to reading books, we like to read about books, but few people know what book reviewers really do or how they do it. William Bushnell has been a professional book reviewer and freelance writer for thirteen years. He has more than 1,350 published pieces in thirty magazines and newspapers. He is professionally affiliated with the National Book Critics Circle and the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and he teaches a class on book reviewing at the University of Southern Maine. He lives in Harpswell, Maine. In conjunction with this talk, Bushnell compiled a list of recommended titles from among the books that have recently crossed his desk. That list is available in PDF form here.

Sue Miller is the best-selling author of nine works of fiction, including The Good Mother and While I Was Gone, and the nonfiction book The Story of My Father. Her new book, The Senator’s Wife, revolves around the marriages of two women—a young mother and the wife of a promiscuous politician—who live side by side in a New England townhouse. Miller lives in Boston. In this recording, she is introduced by Portland novelist Monica Wood.

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.

Christina Baker Kline is a novelist, nonfiction writer, and editor. Her novels include Sweet Water and Desire Lines. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Yale Review, Southern Living, Ms., Parents, and Family Life. Currently writer-in-residence at Fordham University, Kline lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband, three boys, and their dog, Lucy. She spends summers with extended family on Mount Desert Island. Her newest novel is The Way Life Should Be.

Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Jennifer Gilmore’s Golden Country tells the intertwining stories of three immigrants seeking their fortunes. Gilmore’s reinvention of the Jewish American novel, captures the exuberance of the American dream while exposing its underbelly—disillusionment, greed, and the disaffection bred by success. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Gilmore’s work has appeared in magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Allure, BookForum, CutBank, Nerve, Salon, and The Stranger. She works in publishing and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton is a tale about an American librarian, Fiona Sweeney, who leaves Brooklyn to work for a relief organization in Africa that sends books on the backs of camels to forgotten villages. Fiona’s intentions are entirely pure but, when the bookmobile causes a feud among the nomadic tribe it aims to help, she realizes her good deeds may come with a high price. Hamilton worked as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press for five years in the Middle East, spent five years in Moscow where she was a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, then traveled to Afghanistan as a freelance journalist. She currently lives with her family in Brooklyn. To donate books to the real camel bookmobile in northern Kenya, visit the Camel Book Drive.

Meredith Hall graduated from Bowdoin College at age forty-four and wrote her first piece, “Killing Chickens,” in 2002. Two years later, she won the $50,000 Gift of Freedom Award from A Room of Her Own Foundation. Her other honors include a Pushcart Prize and “notable essay” recognition in Best American Essays; she was also a finalist for the Rona Jaffe Award. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Creative Nonfiction, the Southern Review, Five Points, Prairie Schooner, and several anthologies. She teaches writing at the University of New Hampshire and lives in Pownal, Maine. Without A Map: A Memoir is her first book.

Eric B. Martin wrote The Virgin’s Guide to Mexico from 2001-2006 in Mexico City and California. Raised in Maine, he was educated in Austin, Durham, and Quito, Ecuador. He has worked on vineyards, beer trucks, tobacco fields, and in homeless shelters. The recent recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship, he is the author of the novels Luck and Winners, which was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. He lives in San Francisco on the corner of Mission and Cesar Chavez.

Elizabeth Edwards is originally from Pittsburgh and now lives in Kittery, Maine. She earned an M.A. in writing from the University of New Hampshire and has published poems in many journals including The Southern Review, Witness, The Antioch Review, The Carolina Quarterly, The Cream City Review, Sycamore Review, and The Florida Review. She was the Maine Arts Commission Poetry Fellow in 2001.

Colin West is a prolific British author who writes nonsense verse and humorous books, such as this one, about a lobster who takes his joking one step too far. Rachel Davis, children’s librarian at the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth, reads the book aloud and then teaches two fingerplays about the ocean.

While walking through the woods in autumn, Oliver chases a leaf and gets separated from his parents. This is the story of how he finds them again. It is read aloud by Rachel Davis, children’s librarian at the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth, who then shares two fingerplays about leaves.

This bedtime story by Sue Heap is set in the Wild West. As Rachel Davis, children’s librarian at the Thomas Memorial Library in Cape Elizabeth, reads the book aloud, you can follow along in your own copy or a copy borrowed from the library. Then, listen to some fingerplays about cowboys.

Storyteller Pamella Beliveau has performed for children of all ages at libraries, schools, festivals and other children’s events throughout Maine and New England. She has created early childhood literacy programs at public libraries, done residency work at schools throughout the state, and been recognized by the Maine Arts Commission for her quality storytelling programs. Here, she shares stories with a group of toddlers and preschoolers, then talks with their parents and caregivers about the strategies she has used.

Amy MacDonald is a children’s book author who lives in Maine. The Portland Stage Company Affiliate Artists have created staged readings of three of Amy’s picture books, with different actors playing different characters. With Amy’s permission, their performance of her very first picture book, Little Beaver and the Echo, is available here.

Amy MacDonald is a children’s book author who lives in Maine. The Portland Stage Company Affiliate Artists have created staged readings of three of Amy’s picture books, with different actors playing different characters. With Amy’s permission, their performance of Please, Malese!, a trickster tale from Haiti, is available here.

Amy MacDonald is a children’s book author who lives in Maine. The Portland Stage Company Affiliate Artists have created staged readings of three of Amy’s picture books, with different actors playing different characters. With Amy’s permission, their performance of Rachel Fister’s Blister is available here.

Author Maria Testa combines readings from her book for young adults, Something About America, with discussion of events in Lewiston and Kosovo that inspired the story.

In this picture book by Martin Waddell, illustrated by Patrick Benson, three baby owls whose mother has gone out into the night try to stay calm until she returns. As Vicky Smith, editor of children’s book reviews for Kirkus, reads the book aloud, you can follow along in your own copy or a copy borrowed from the library.

Vicky Smith is the former director and children’s librarian at the McArthur Public Library in Biddeford. She is now the editor of children’s book reviews for Kirkus. She has been active in the Public Library Association’s early literacy program, Every Child Ready to Read, as well as the Council’s own Born to Read program. Drawing on all of her experience, Vicky offers this brief introduction to early literacy skills for parents and other caregivers.

Playwright Victoria Mares-Hershey’s “How Did You Get Here?” gives voice to Africans in Maine, during the period of slavery and beyond, by giving audiences a sense of their everyday lives. This reading of the play’s first act was recorded on March 21, 2008, at the Museum of African Culture’s new location on Brown Street in Portland. Museum Director Oscar Mokeme welcomes the audience and architect Stephen Oliver introduces the show, then volunteer actors join with Mares-Hershey to perform the excerpt.

Through different historical characters, humor, little known facts, and thought-provoking stories, Taxing Maine explores what taxes mean for Maine communities, the state government, the Maine landscape, and Mainers’ wallets. The performance, featuring David Greenham and Dennis A. Price from the Theater at Monmouth, encourages us to consider how history and a range of opinions and beliefs about taxes have influenced our current taxation system.

The Council sponsored a poetry reading by Wesley McNair at the State Street Church in Portland during the Fall of 2002. He was introduced by fellow Maine writer Cathie Pelletier. McNair has a long-standing relationship with the Council. He has led workshops for Maine teachers about using poetry in the classroom, and he granted an interview for our Fall 2001 newsletter.

Barbara Weiden Boyd is the Henry Winkley Professor of Latin and Greek at Bowdoin College, where she has taught since 1980. She earned her Ph.D. at Michigan and has written extensively on Latin literature, notably two books on the poet Ovid. In recent years she has prepared a series of school texts and teachers’ guides to Virgil’s Aeneid. She has also been a visiting professor twice at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome. Her talk on translation relies on a handout, which you can download here in PDF format.

Peter Aicher is Professor of Classics at the University of Southern Maine in Portland, where he frequently teaches courses on Homer and Virgil, in translation and in Greek and Latin. He combines these literary interests with a fascination with the city of Rome, which has resulted in several books and numerous articles and talks. He recently designed a course entitled “The City of Rome: Romulus and Mussolini,” which explores how an architectural language of power has evolved and persisted over the millennia. This is only the first part of Professor Aicher’s talk. In the second part, he uses maps of Rome and the ancient world to show where the events described in the Aeneid took place. This part of the talk will be available soon on video.

Michael C. J. Putnam is MacMillan Professor of Classics and Professor of Comparative Literature at Brown University, where he has taught since 1961. Educated at Harvard, he has written 11 books on Latin literature and has edited four others. He is widely regarded as one of the leading interpreters of the work of Virgil. He has been closely associated with the American Academy in Rome for many years and is a summer resident of Rockport, 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.

“A Dialogue of Flower and Song” is a one-act play written by Stonecoast student Cindy Williams Gutiérrez and performed here by Bridget Madden, Elsa Colón, Julie Manon, Luis Luque, and Kathleen Clancy. Gerardo Calderón of Grupo Condor provides live pre-Columbian music. The play re-imagines a 15th century Aztec literary event, drawing together three women poets from different periods in Mexico’s history—pre-Conquest Tenochtitlan, colonial New Spain, and the current Mexican Diaspora. This recording begins with an introduction and acknowledgements from the playwright.

The play is a work-in-progress. If you would like to provide feedback as part of the development process, please email Cindy Williams Gutiérrez. All rights are reserved by the playwright. For permission to reproduce, perform or publish this work, please contact her via email or at (503) 631-4113.

Charles Martin is a renowned poet and translator. He is the author of six poetry collections, three of which have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His verse translation of Ovid”s Metamorphoses received the 2004 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. In 2005, the American Academy of Arts and Letters honored him with the coveted Award for Literature. Martin lives in Manhattan and teaches at CUNY and Syracuse University. Here at Stonecoast, he is introduced by Patricia Smith.

Tayari Jones was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia where she spent most of her childhood with the exception of the one year she and her family spent in Nigeria, West Africa. As a visiting writer at Stonecoast, Jones read from her newer novel, The Untelling (Warner, 2005). Her debut novel, Leaving Atlanta (Warner, 2002), won the Hurston/Wright Award for Debut Fiction. Currently, Jones is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers-Newark University. She is introduced by poet Tim Seibles.

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. We have made a special page for these recordings, all between three and ten minutes long, which you can access here.

We welcome your feedback on this Stonecoast podcast. You can leave a comment on this blog.

Maine poets Annie Finch and Baron Wormser led students and fellow Stonecoast faculty members in this wide-ranging conversation about the place of poetry. They based their discussion on two books: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde and The Song of the Earth by Jonathan Bate.

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).

Two journalists in one Portland household—and both write for the New York Times Magazine. Mike Paterniti and Sara Corbett are often away, however, laying the groundwork for their articles and books. Sometimes alone, as when Paterniti was Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain (Dell, 2000). (Read an excerpt from the book here.) Sometimes together, as when Corbett recounts her experience of learning Spanish in Spain, in “Learning the Lingua Franca” in Travel and Leisure. Paterniti has won National Magazine Awards for features and profiles; Corbett’s New York Times essay “The Permanent Scars of Iraq” has been widely discussed. Paterniti and Corbett are also co-founders of The Telling Room, a Portland-based writing center designed to nurture and encourage Maine’s next generation of writers.

Born in Mississippi, educated in Michigan and California, a sometime resident of Montana and New Orleans, his Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day set in New Jersey, Richard Ford now lives in Maine. And he writes about it: “Charity,” in Contemporary Maine Fiction (Down East Books, 2005), for example, is about people from away who see the possibilities of Maine in very different ways. The considerable debate about whether Ford is a “Southern” or “ex-Southern” writer now has a new dimension, “Maine writer.”

Like other writers interviewed for this series, Bill Roorbach has written about a very personal part of Maine. Temple Stream (Dell, 2005) considers the stream that borders the fields below his house in Farmington; it won the nonfiction Maine Literary Award. His stories and novels deal with equally real and natural people. And he produces “teacherly tomes” on memoirs, essays, and Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: The Art of Truth (Oxford University Press, 2001).

Richard Russo retired early from Colby College in order to write full-time. He has set several novels in New York and Pennsylvania, but given his fascination with decaying towns and their struggling inhabitants, he was bound to write of a Maine mill town sooner or later. Empire Falls (Knopf, 2001) won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize. It was followed by The Whore’s Child and Other Stories (Knopf, 2002). Russo’s newest book is The Bridge of Sighs (Knopf, 2007)

Monica Wood learned her craft early, growing up in a family of Irish Canadian storytellers and ballad singers in Mexico, Maine. Her short stories and novels are well known; the latest is Any Bitter Thing (Chronicle, 2005). She also writes for writers, on her website and in works like The Pocket Muse (F & W Publications, 2006). “The best advice I have for aspiring writers is to read, read, read. Read everybody.”

Now living in Tennessee, Cathie Pelletier remains a very Maine writer. Born here and educated at the University of Maine, she speaks in her novels, including most recently Running the Bulls (University Press of New England, 2005) of northern Maine. Pelletier also writes screenplays, poetry, and short stories. Writing as K. C. McKinnon, she has produced some of her most popular work, notably Dancing at the Harvest Moon (Doubleday, 1997).

Rita Charon, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Clinical Medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and the leader of the emerging field of Narrative Medicine. (Click here for a full bio.) As Director and Founder of Columbia’s Program in Narrative Medicine, she guides both aspiring and practicing health care professionals in writing about their experiences from both their own points of view and the imagined perspectives of their patients. In this talk, “Listening for the Self-Telling Body,” she speaks about how these narratives, which she calls parallel charts, both heighten the attention of the caregiver, and create an affiliation between the patient and the caregiver. Dr. Charon is introduced by Lizz Sinclair.

A former public health nurse with many years’ experience, Veneta Masson, R.N., M.A., is also the author of three books. Though no longer in practice, Veneta continues to explore healing art. The title of her newest collection, Clinician’s Guide to the Soul, was also the title of her conference workshop. “As a family nurse practitioner, I relied on countless ‘clinician’s guides,’ concise, up-to-the-minute print or online references to specific topics like antibiotics, common skin conditions or pediatric lab values. But, a guide to the soul! What is the soul? And why, in this golden age of scientific exploration and achievement, do so many of us insist on its relevance to health and health care?”

Rafael Campo, M.D., M.F.A., is a national award winning poet who is also a faculty member and practitioner of general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. (Click here for a full bio.) His newest collection of poetry, The Enemy, was published in April 2007. He is a recipient of the Annual Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Academy of Arts and Sciences, among many other awards. Campo lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. In this recording, he is introduced by Veneta Masson.

Judy Schaefer, R.N.C., M.A., is a nationally recognized author, editor, lecturer, teacher, and advocate for patients as well as nurses. Her conference workshop was called “The Courage to Create: Finding Your Voice Through Writing.” If you have pen and paper handy while you listen, and pause the recording when Judy says to start writing, you can actually take part in the workshop yourself.

In this conference workshop, Rafael Campo, M.D., M.F.A., defines a “biocultural” narrative of the illness experience, in contrast to the restrictive biomedical narrative encountered in today’s health care setting. He explores how literary works by Frank O’Hara, Debra Spark, Abraham Verghese, and Veneta Masson issue an insistent invitation to share in diverse human experiences. Please note: This workshop involved a great deal of audience participation. Workshop participants read each of the literary works aloud, and then shared their thoughts and questions. Campo’s microphone did not capture the participants’ voices, so in their place you will hear substitute readers and gaps in the recording. The works discussed are also available here in PDF format.

The St. John Valley is found at the top of the state of Maine with the neighboring province of New Brunswick. Fondly called “The Valley,” this international region is home to around 55,000 people, mostly of French heritage. The Voici the Valley Cultureway was created by Sheila Jans, Don Cyr, and Daniel Picard of CultureWorth to celebrate the places and culture of the Valley. Visitors can enhance their experience (and residents can deepen their understanding) of the region with the Voici the Valley Audio Story and Guide, available here for $15. The guide has maps and information about both sides of the international border. This podcast episode contains the introduction to the 80-minute Audio Story, which brings the region to life through stories, interviews, and traditional music.

This excerpt from the Voici the Valley Audio Story features Allagash resident Joe Kelly recalling his experiences as a logger and river driver in the time before the chain saw. You’ll also hear a French folk song about a river driver, performed by traditional singer Rachel LeBlanc. The photo at right by Daniel Picard shows a traditional “Connors” river driving batteau on the St. John River.

This portion of the Audio Story delves into the rich cultural life of the valley, including its language, idioms, pronunciation, music, and the traditional arts. The region’s French heritage is manifest in interviews with artists and folklorists, as well as traditional singing and instrumental music. Agriculture and cuisine also make an appearance in this excerpt. At right: view of the St. John River from Edmundston, NB toward Frenchville, ME, courtesy Daniel Picard.

Governments on both sides of the international border that runs through the Valley have made laws to regulate the crossing of people and goods. This segment offers a glimpse of how current residents feel about these laws and how their forebears got around them during Prohibition. At right: bagosse, which is homebrew or moonshine, depicted by Daniel Picard.

The complete Voici the Valley Audio Story (available here) includes a thorough historical account of the deportation of the Acadian people from the Maritime Provinces in 1755, the territorial disputes that ensued, and the eventual settlement of the Valley in 1785 by Acadian refugees. This brief excerpt explains how, in the wake of the 1842 treaty that established the border, residents of the south side of the Valley—now a part of the United States—turned to the Catholic Church to provide social services, schools, and hospitals. The Church, rather than their new government, shaped their lives and culture. The photo at right by Don Cyr shows the angel on the tower of the former Catholic church, Notre Dame du Mont-Carmel, now the Musee culturel du Mont-Carmel in Lille, ME.

In 1934, Huey Long organized the Share-Our-Wealth Society, which advocated a populist program for redistributing wealth. In this April 1935 radio address, Long sharply criticized FDR and the New Deal and then sketched out his alternative program. (From the collection of Andy Lanset — used with permission.)

Tricia Welsch is Associate Professor of Film Studies at Bowdoin College. Welsch used clips to compare the 1949 film version of “All the King’s Men” starring Broderick Crawford and the 2006 re-make starring Sean Penn. Since those clips are protected by copyright, this excerpt from her talk includes only the background material she gave on Hollywood’s treatment of politics and film adaptations of novels.

Joseph Wensink is a PhD candidate in English at Brandeis University, where he teaches writing. He has written on the links between intellectual history and the modern American novel, and is particularly interested in studying Warren’s Jack Burden as a failed idealist. In his talk, he offered a close reading of several passages from the book that shed light on Burden’s character. Download the handout from this talk in PDF format.