New Community Advisory Board
MWPA is pleased to welcome the members of a new Community Advisory Board that will expand the breadth and depth of voices contributing to the organization. Planning and thinking about the Community Advisory Board (CAB) began more than three years ago and is one of a series of efforts on the road toward MWPA becoming a literary organization that truly welcomes, includes, and supports all of Maine’s writing and storytelling communities. We have a long way to go to reach that goal, and we approach this work with humility and determination and see it as vital to MWPA’s future, as well as the future of Maine’s literary culture.
Other parts of this work include adding two new Student Board Members to our Board of Directors, increasing scholarships and fellowships directed at writers who are Black, indigenous, and people of color, offering free long-term workshops to particular underrepresented groups through our Community Word Program, tracking and reporting on the diversity of the writers, editors, and agents we work with each year, working with two Literary Fellows in 2021 to plan and produce a series of free online literary conversations that look at the intersection of race, culture, and literature, and other projects and initiatives yet to come. You can read MWPA’s Statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion here.
Julia Bouwsma lives off-the-grid in the mountains of western Maine, where she is a poet, farmer, freelance editor, and small-town librarian. She is the author of two poetry collections, Midden (Fordham University Press, 2018) and Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017), and is a two-time winner of the Maine Literary Award for Poetry Book. She serves as Library Director for Webster Library in Kingfield.
Jaed Coffin is the author of Roughhouse Friday (FSG, 2019), a memoir about the year he won the middleweight title of a barroom boxing show in Juneau, Alaska. He's also the author of A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (Da Capo, 2008), which chronicles the summer he spent as a Buddhist monk in his mother's village in Thailand. A regular contributor to Down East Magazine, Jaed's writing has appeared in the New York Times, Nautilus, and The Sun as well the Moth Radio Hour and TED. He teaches creative writing at the University of New Hampshire and lives in Maine with his wife and two daughters.
Alana Dao is a mother, writer, and restaurant professional who writes mostly about race, contemporary culture, and food. Currently, she is a Co-Director of A CLEARING: A Maine Arts Community and a Co-founder / Managing Editor of KHỔ QUA, a newsletter by CÔNG TỬ BỘT. She received a BA from Smith College and a MA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Myronn Hardy is the author of five books of poems: Approaching the Center, winner of the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award, The Headless Saints, winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, Catastrophic Bliss, winner of the Griot-Stadler Prize for poetry, Kingdom, and most recently, Radioactive Starlings, published by Princeton University Press (2017). His poems have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Baffler, Rhino, and elsewhere. He teaches poetry at Bates College.
Rooted in place and people, Annaliese Jakimides’s poetry and prose have been broadcast on local and national public radio, and published in many journals, magazines, and anthologies. As a freelance worder, she has written about many of Maine’s creatives and supports the work of others working on behalf of all of us, from Detroit, Michigan, to Deer Isle, Maine. After many years in inner city Boston and more years in the woods of Mount Chase, she now lives in downtown Bangor.
Reza Jalali is a teacher, writer, and community organizer. Originally from Iran, he has lived in Maine for over two decades. He worked and taught at the University of Southern Maine for many years and is now the executive director of the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center. He co-authored New Mainers: Portraits of Our Immigrant Neighbors, which told stories of recent immigrants and is also the author of The Poets and the Assassin, a play about women in Iran; Moon Watchers: Shirin’s Ramadan Miracle, a children’s book; and Homesick Mosque, a collection of short stories.
Tim Karu is an innkeeper and chef in Portland. When he’s not in the kitchen, he produces speculative fiction audio drama and writes about food and queer representation in media.
Mihku Paul is a Maliseet writer and visual artist who lives and works in Portland. She is a 2010 graduate of the Stonecoast MFA program at the University of Southern Maine. Her poetry can be found in multiple publications and has been translated internationally to French and Spanish. Her first book, 20th Century PowWow Playland, was published in 2012 by Bowman Books.
Robin Talbot is the Co-Director of the Stonecoast MFA program. Prior to joining Stonecoast, She has worked on two documentary films: A Call to Action: A Community's Dream, which outlines the struggle for civil rights in Maine, and Starting Over; Understanding and Supporting Refugee and Immigrant Experiences. Robin is a Portland Stage Company board trustee and the faculty adviser of the Stonecoast Review.
Phuc Tran has been a high school Latin teacher for more than twenty years while also simultaneously establishing himself as a highly sought-after tattooer in the Northeast. His 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive” was featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour. His acclaimed memoir, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight To Fit In, received the 2020 New England Book Award for Nonfiction. He lives with his family in Portland.
Arisa White is an assistant professor of creative writing at Colby College and a Cave Canem fellow. She is the author of Who’s Your Daddy and co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, winner of the 2020 Maine Literary Award for Young People’s Literature.