Noir at the Bar
Sep
26
6:30 PM18:30
Readings & Talks

Noir at the Bar

On the night before the Maine Crime Wave, join us for a night of suspense, betrayal, and retribution from Maine's crime writing community at Novel Bar & Café. Hosted by Matt Cost and Jule Selbo, the night will feature a criminally phenomenal line up of writers including Brenda Buchanan, Richard Cass, Bruce Robert Coffin, Paul Dorion, Mo Drammeh, Julia Spencer Flemming, Kate Flora, Chris Holm, Barbara Ross, Gabriela Stiteler, and Katie York.

Doors open at 6:30, but the event starts at 7:00! The event will take place in the Speakeasy at Novel Bar and Cafe, not in the main area.

Arrive at 6:30 to grab a drink, connect with members of the crime writing community, purchase some books from Kelly's Bookstore, and settle in for twisted tales read by masters of the craft, trivia, and prizes.

Investigate the featured writers below!

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Maine Chapbook Series Launch Party & Reading
Oct
15
7:00 PM19:00
Readings & Talks

Maine Chapbook Series Launch Party & Reading

Please join the MWPA, Gretchen Legler, and previous chapbook winners for a reading and celebration of Mike Bendzela’s Notes from Above Ground.

Award-winning nonfiction writer Chloe Cooper Jones chose Mike Bendzela’s Notes from Above Ground as the winner of the 2024 Maine Chapbook Series in nonfiction, and now the book is in print thanks to editing and design help from Pink Eraser Press.

Cooper Jones writes: “From its opening lines, Notes from Above Ground captivates with an unusual, unforgettable voice—at once inquisitive and grounded. This chapbook explores mortality from unexpected angles, illuminating death not only as an end, but as a quiet, vital aspect of beauty, growth, and renewal.”

Previous chapbook winners will read from their work, as will Mike, and Gretchen Legler, author of Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life, will join Mike for a conversation about his winning chapbook.

Mike Bendzela lives in Standish on the historic Dow Farm estate restored by his husband. He teaches writing at the University of Southern Maine and is also the superintendent of a local cemetery. During the summer, he grows heritage apples for markets around Portland. In the past, he has worked on his husband's restoration construction crew and as an EMT in his town. He is also an American old time musician, playing fiddle and banjo. He received a Pushcart Prize for short fiction in 1992. His book of evolutionary fables, a hybrid work of fiction/prose poetry, Metazoan Variations, was published in 2020 by UnCollected Press. He is a monthly columnist for the website 3 Quarks Daily, from which the essays in this collection are drawn.

Gretchen Legler is a farmer, gardener, teacher, writer, and lover of the natural world. Her three booklength works of literary nonfiction include: All The Powerful Things: A Sportswoman’s Notebook, On The Ice: An Intimate Portrait of Life at McMurdo Station Antarctica, and Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life. Her writing has won numerous awards including the 2023 Maine Book Award for memoir, and the John Cole Award for Maine-based nonfiction. She has been awarded two Pushcart prizes, a Notable Essay mention in Best American Essays, and has been published in venues including Orion and The Georgia Review. She teaches creative writing and English at the University of Maine Farmington, where she is also the Director of the Campus and Community Garden. 

Previous Maine Chapbook Series winners include:

Suzanne Langlois’s Bright Glint Gone (Poetry, 2020), Brandon Dudley’s Hazards of Nature: Stories (Fiction, 2021), Coco McCracken’s The Rabbit (Nonfiction, 2022), Sasha Goodwin’s Centipede (Poetry, 2023), and Aliza Dube’s The Dependents (Fiction, 2024).

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Oct
21
7:00 PM19:00
Readings & Talks

In Relation: Poets & Writers on the Traditions that Shaped Them

Please join the MWPA and SPACE and a group of writers in celebration of Kristen Case’s new book, Daphne.

In celebration of Kristen Case’s new book, Daphne, recently published by Tupelo Press,  a group of accomplished and award-winning poets and writers will gather to share work and talk about how their work is in conversation with various poems and traditions and what that means. The poets & writers include Kristen Case, Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Nina MacLaughlin, Jefferson Navicky, and Jeffrey Thomson.

In Daphne, Case writes, “The story goes like this: a girl/woman is chased after and lost. She becomes a lost thing. The man becomes a poet.”

The editors of Tupelo Press call Daphne “a powerful decolonization of the imagination” and note that in the book she “explores the relationship between predation and the lyric, particularly within the Western canon…[S]he does not merely critique or gesture at problems, but instead, works toward more just and equitable forms of discourse. By challenging the boundaries between literary criticism, prose poetry, hybrid forms, manifesto, and the lyric, Case ultimately works within received literary forms to expand what is possible within them.”

Please join us for what will be a one-of-a-kind reading and conversation. PRINT: A Bookstore will be on hand to sell copies of Kristen Case’s book and books by the others. Tickets are $5 with some free community tickets available at the button below.

Note: this event is rescheduled from July 8 — all existing tickets will be observed.

Kristen Case’s latest poetry collection, Daphne, will be published by Tupelo Press in June. Her first, Little Arias was published by New Issues Press in 2015, and her second collection, Principles of Economics, published by Switchback Books, won the 2018 Gatewood Prize. She is the recipient of the Maine Literary Award in Poetry (2016 and 2020), a MacDowell Fellowship, and the UMF Trustee Professorship. She is Executive Director of the Monson Arts Seminar, and she is also the author of the book American Poetry and Poetic Practice: Crosscurrents from Emerson to Susan Howe (Camden House, 2011) and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Henry David Thoreau (in development, Oxford UP), William James and Literary Studies (forthcoming, Cambridge UP), Thoreau in an Age of Crisis: Uses and Abuses of An American Icon (Fink, 2021), 21|19: Contemporary Poets in the 19th Century Archive (Milkweed Editions, 2019), and Thoreau at 200: Essays and Reassessments (Cambridge UP, 2016). Her current book project is Keeping Time: Henry David Thoreau’s Kalendar (forthcoming, Milkweed Editions). She is Scholarship Research and Grants Manager at the Mitchell Institute.

Gibson Fay-LeBlanc's first collection of poems, Death of a Ventriloquist won the Vassar Miller Prize, and his second, Deke Dangle Dive, was published by CavanKerry Press. His poems have appeared recently in magazines including Narrative Magazine, Poetry Northwest, and Orion, and he received the 2025 Marvin Bell Memorial Poetry Prize from december magazine and Maggie Smith. He has helped lead community arts organizations including The Telling Room, SPACE Gallery, and Hewnoaks and currently serves as the Executive Director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Nina MacLaughlin is the author of Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung (FSG/FSG Originals), a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award and the Massachusetts Book Award, as well as Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice (Black Sparrow), winner of the Massachusetts Book Award. Her first book was the acclaimed memoir Hammer Head: The Making of a Carpenter (W.W. Norton), a finalist for the New England Book Award. Formerly an editor at the Boston Phoenix, she worked for nine years as a carpenter, and was also a books columnist for the Boston Globe. Her work has appeared on or in The Paris Review Daily, The Virginia Quarterly Review, n+1, The Believer, The New York Times Book Review, Agni, American Short Fiction, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Meatpaper, and elsewhere. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Jefferson Navicky was born in Chicago and grew up in Southeastern Ohio. He earned his M.F.A. from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University. He is the author of four books, most recently Head of Island Beautification for the Rural Outlands (2023), a Finalist for the 2023 Big Other Book Award for Fiction. Antique Densities: Modern Parables & Other Experiments in Short Prose (2021) won the 2022 Maine Literary Award for Poetry. Jefferson serves the New England poetry community in a variety of capacities including as a member of the steering committee for the Belfast Poetry Festival, as Interviews Editor for The Café Review, as Prose Poetry Editor for Hole in the Head Review, and as a member of the board of Millay House Rockland. He has taught writing as a long-time adjunct faculty member at Southern Maine Community College, as a visiting professor at Bates College, and many times through the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

Jeffrey Thomson is a poet, memoirist, translator, and editor, and is the author of multiple books including Museum of Objects Burned by the Souls in Purgatory (Alice James, 2022) and Half/Life: New and Selected Poems (Alice James, 2019), his memoir, fragile, The Complete Poems of Catullus: an Annotated Translation, and an anthology, From the Fishouse. He has been an NEA Fellow, the Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in Creative Writing at the Seamus Heaney Poetry Centre in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the Hodson Trust-John Carter Brown Fellow at Brown University.  He is currently professor of creative writing at the University of Maine Farmington.

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Gather 65
Sep
17
6:00 PM18:00
Gather

Gather 65


Please join us for MWPA’s beloved GATHER event series! On Wednesday, September 17, 2025 at 6:00 PM, MWPA members & friends can attend an in-person Gather at one of several locations around the state OR join an online Poetry Gather.

To sign up for the online Gather, click the corresponding RSVP link below. On the afternoon of the Gather date, you’ll receive an email with a link to join your Gather on Zoom.

To join an event, find the most convenient location below, and gather with us!

Please note: A couple of our regular Gather locations will not be meeting this month, and some new Gathers have begun or recently rejoined the mix. Please check the details below very closely. You can reach out to your local Gather host for questions and concerns surrounding illness protocols and precautions, and we encourage you to join an online Gather if in-person events become unsafe or inaccessible for you. For more information, contact Samara at: samara@mainewriters.org.

About GATHER: GATHER encourages members (and their friends!) to meet and mingle with fellow members in locations around Maine for camaraderie and conversation. There is no agenda to GATHER besides getting together with your community of fellow writers and literary professionals to talk writing, reading, and life.

While GATHER events are not open readings, manuscript exchanges, or organized writing-prompt sessions, they are opportunities for literary-minded folks to meet and plan any of those things and more. Food and drink is most always available for purchase.

Online Gathers:

POETRY
Host: Jeri Theriault
RSVP HERE

In-Person Events:

BANGOR
Host: Annaliese Jakimides (a.jakimides@gmail.com)
Location: Sea Dog Brewing (26 Front Street, Bangor)

BLUE HILL
Hosts: Marie Epply & Sarah Pebworth (mmepply@yahoo.com, sapebworth@gmail.com)
Location: Marlintini's Grill (83 Mines Road, Blue Hill)

BRUNSWICK
Hosts: Molly McGrath, Alix Morris, Peter Owen (molly@pinkeraserpress.com, alix.morris@gmail.com, peterowen326@gmail.com)
Location: Flight Deck Brewing (11 Atlantic Avenue, Brunswick )

DAMARISCOTTA
Host: Andrea Vassallo (andrea.granted@gmail.com)
Location: Damariscotta River Gril (155 Main Street, Damariscotta)

LEWISTON / AUBURN
Host: Darren Deth (darren.deth@vcfa.edu)
Location: 84 Court Pizza & Restaurant (84 Court Street, Auburn)

LUBEC
Hosts: John Rule & Sheila Post (jdrule@lubecscribbler.com)
Location: Lubec Brewing Co. (41 S Water Street, Lubec)

MIDCOAST
Host: Chris Friden & Lee Reilly (chrisfriden@me.com, reillytide@yahoo.com)
Location: 40 Paper (40 Washington Street, Camden)

SOUTH PORTLAND
Host: Kathy Eliscu (kathyeliscu@outlook.com)
Location: Bridgeway Restaurant (71 Ocean Street, South Portland)

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Nick Fuller Googins Launches THE FREQUENCY OF LIVING THINGS at SPACE
Aug
12
7:00 PM19:00
Readings & Talks

Nick Fuller Googins Launches THE FREQUENCY OF LIVING THINGS at SPACE

SPACE, Back Cove Books, and Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance present the book launch for The Frequency of Living Things, the new forthcoming novel by author Nick Fuller Googins. Nick will be in conversation with Taryn Bowe, Associate Director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

The Frequency of Living Things is a heartbreaking American epic about three sisters who unearth lifetimes of family tensions as they are forced to rescue one of their own from peril, testing the limits of sacrifice, sisterhood, and forgiveness from the author of the “profound work of great wisdom” (Alice Elliott Dark) The Great Transition.

Josie may be the youngest sister, but she takes care of everyone. She is the left-brained scientist to her twin sisters’ right-brained artistic chaos. She makes sure their rent gets paid on time, they make their therapy appointments, and has also been their de-facto band manager since she was a teenager. When Ara, her middle sister (by a few minutes), calls from jail, it isn’t exactly a surprise, and Josie knows exactly how to snap into action.

Emma is the quintessential frontwoman, complete with looks and attitude. But the success of The Twins’ first (and only) album—gold records, Grammy nominations, and diehard fans—is two decades behind her. Hiding under the surface of her swagger is a long-held guilt that has turned her into her sister’s enabler. Emma knows she needs Ara’s creative genius and thinks a jailhouse record could be just the thing to get Ara her freedom and their band back on the main stage.

Ara is detoxing, not only from her opioid habit but also from her family. The truth is, as crazy as it sounds, she’s not in a hurry to get out of lock-up. In the most unlikely and dangerous of places, this could be her chance to face the demons of her past and disentangle herself from her family. Bertie, who raised her three daughters as a single mother, has always taught them that family won’t always be around to take care of you. A former defense attorney and perennial do-gooder, she’s committed to taking care of everyone less fortunate even if that means putting her girls’ needs second. But now Bertie must decide if she should reenter her daughters’ lives in their greatest time of need—or watch to see if the resilience she’s taught them will help carry them through.

A story both intimate and sweeping, The Frequency of Living Things explores the timeless question of how our individual destinies are intertwined with our family, our siblings, and our history no matter how we try to untangle ourselves from them.

Nick Fuller Googins has published short stories and essays in The Paris Review, the Los Angeles Times, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Maine and works as an elementary school teacher. He is the author of The Great Transition and The Frequency of Living Things.

Taryn Bowe’s work has appeared in Best American Short Stories, on NPR’s Selected Shorts, and in literary journals, such as The Sewanee Review, Epoch, Indiana Review, and Joyland. She currently serves as the associate director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

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Gather 64
Jul
16
6:00 PM18:00
Gather

Gather 64


Please join us for MWPA’s beloved GATHER event series! On Wednesday, July 16, 2025 at 6:00 PM, MWPA members & friends can attend an in-person Gather at one of several locations around the state as the online Poetry Gather is taking a break for the month of July.

To join an event, find the most convenient location below, and gather with us!

Please note: A couple of our regular Gather locations will not be meeting this month, and some new Gathers have begun or recently rejoined the mix. Please check the details below very closely. You can reach out to your local Gather host for questions and concerns surrounding illness protocols and precautions, and we encourage you to join an online Gather if in-person events become unsafe or inaccessible for you. For more information, contact Samara at: samara@mainewriters.org.

About GATHER: GATHER encourages members (and their friends!) to meet and mingle with fellow members in locations around Maine for camaraderie and conversation. There is no agenda to GATHER besides getting together with your community of fellow writers and literary professionals to talk writing, reading, and life.

While GATHER events are not open readings, manuscript exchanges, or organized writing-prompt sessions, they are opportunities for literary-minded folks to meet and plan any of those things and more. Food and drink is most always available for purchase.

In-Person Events:

BANGOR
Host: Annaliese Jakimides (a.jakimides@gmail.com)
Location: Sea Dog Brewing (26 Front St, Bangor)

BELFAST
Host: Beckie Weinheimer (beckieweinheimer@gmail.com)
Location: Anodyne Book Shop (175 W Main Street, Searsport, ME)

BLUE HILL
Host: Marie Epply & Sarah Pebworth (mmepply@yahoo.com, sapebworth@gmail.com)
Location: Marlintini's Grill (83 Mines Rd, Blue Hill)

BRUNSWICK
Host: Peter Owen (peterowen326@gmail.com)
Location: Flight Deck Brewing (11 Atlantic Avenue, Brunswick )

SOUTH PORTLAND
Host: Kathy Eliscu (kathyeliscu@outlook.com)
Location: Bridgeway Restaurant (71 Ocean Street, South Portland)

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A Celebration of Write ME
May
31
7:00 PM19:00
Readings & Talks, Write ME

A Celebration of Write ME

Please join the MWPA and Maine Poet Laureate Julia Bouwsma for a celebration of the Write ME project!

With support from the MWPA, the Maine Arts Commission, The Telling Room, and many public libraries and organizations around Maine, and funding from the Academy of American Poets and the Mellon Foundation, Julia Bouwsma created Write ME, a Maine-wide epistolary poetry project that 1) introduced the form through a series of 23 free public workshops across the state during the fall and early winter of 2024 and then 2) paired up hundreds of participating individuals as “poetry pen pals” to communicate with one another during the winter.

This project brought together people in different parts of Maine to exchange letter poems. This project was open to anyone in Maine (or connected to the state) ages 18 and up, with additional youth participation happening through The Telling Room, the Monson Arts High School Program, and assorted Maine high school teachers.

Now we’ll gather together, both virtually and in person, to celebrate the project, hear from people who exchanged poems, and celebrate the power of poetry to connect us all.

A free reception will begin at 6 PM. To watch the livestream of the event, click on the button below or go to YouTube.com and find the Waldo Theatre’s channel.

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