Authors Panel 2023
The following authors will be participating on the Free Authors Panel during PITCH on Saturday, September 23rd from 12:30-1:15 pm on the 7th floor of the USM Glickman Library. Lunch (for those who order it when they register for PITCH) will be served on the 7th floor as well.
Featured Authors
Ian Fritz
Ian Fritz was an Airborne Cryptologic Linguist in the United States Air Force from 2008-2013. He became a physician after completing his enlistment. Now, he writes. Fritz’s first book, What the Taliban Told Me, is coming out August 15th from Simon and Schuster. His agents are Frank Weimann and Claudia Cross of Folio, and he has had two articles published in The Atlantic, here, and here.
Liz Iversen
Liz Iversen is an Aspen Words Emerging Writer Fellow, Tin House Scholar, and Ashley Bryan Fellow. Her fiction and essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Fourteen Hills, Passages North, J Journal: New Writing on Justice, and elsewhere. The daughter of a former U.S. Navy private and a Filipina immigrant, Liz was born in the Philippines and raised in South Dakota. She is currently at work on a novel set in Japanese-occupied Philippines. You can find her online at Liziversen.com.
Brandon Ying Kit Boey
Brandon Ying Kit Boey writes fiction and poetry. His work has been described as literary and atmospheric, often drawing from Asian cosmology and lore. He grew up moving frequently, never staying in the same place for more than three years. Themes of time and space, and the malleability of both, feature prominently as he has described the attempt always “to build a bridge” that can seemingly never be, over an expanse that might otherwise never be crossed. His poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies, and he is also a writer of plays and short stories. Karma of the Sun is his first novel, and has received advanced praise from Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Foreword Reviews, as well as The Wall Street Journal, which called the novel “poetically rendered” and a “perfect read for this moody season,” and Locus Magazine, which referred to the book as a “not-to-miss debut from a ridiculously talented newcomer.”
Nick Fuller Googins
Nick Fuller Googins is the author of the novel, The Great Transition. His short fiction and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, Men’s Health, The Sun, The Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. He lives in Maine, and works as an elementary school teacher. He is a proud member of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, as well as the National Education Association, the largest labor union in the country.
Samara Cole Doyon
Samara Cole Doyon is a second generation Haitian American living in the state of Maine–a region of unceded Wabanaki / Abenaki territory where half the roots of her family tree reside. She is a poet and educator, holding a BA in English, with graduate-level teacher training from the University of Southern Maine. She is also, of course, a children’s book author, winning both a Lupine Award and an International Literacy Association Award for her debut picture book, Magnificent Homespun Brown (Tilbury House Publishers, January, 2020). She’s also the author of Magic Like That (Lee & Low Books, September, 2021). She lives with her husband, two children, three guinea pigs, and rescue pup in Lewiston.
Cliff Travers
Clif Travers is a visual artist and writer living in Portland, Maine. His writing has been featured in Underwood Press, Freeze Frame fiction, Coffin Bell Journal, Crack the Spine Anthology, . His collection of linked stories, The Stones of Riverton, is scheduled for publication by DownEast Books in September 2023. Clif received his MFA in creative writing from Stonecoast at the University of Southern Maine, and he teaches creative writing at Writerfest in New York, The Writing Center in Gloucester Massachusetts, and Maine Media.