Lit Event Fellows for 2021
We are happy to announce that MWPA staff members will be working with two emerging writers, Samaa Abdurraqib and Morgan Talty, to plan a short series of free online events in 2021 in which writers from Maine and beyond will discuss the cross-section of literature, race, and culture in Maine and in our country. Grants from the Maine Humanities Council and the Kirby Family Foundation help make this work possible. Please stay tuned for more information about the event series.
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation in Maine. He received his BA in Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and his MFA in fiction from Stonecoast’s low-residency program. Named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30,” his work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub, and elsewhere. He is a writing consultant and a college instructor who teaches courses in both English and Native American Studies. He lives in Levant.
Samaa Abdurraqib was raised in the Land of Buckeyes (Ohio), spent 8 years in the Land of Dairy (Wisconsin), and moved to the Land of Lobsters in August 2010. She spent three years teaching Gender & Women’s Studies at Bowdoin College, transitioned into the non-profit world in 2013, and currently works at the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence. She enjoys birding, hiking and being outdoors, facilitating reading groups for the Maine Humanities Council, and coaching leaders of color. Samaa loves Black and Brown and Queer and Trans people. She also loves her adult kitten, Stashiell Hammett, resident charmer and most adorable feline in the world. Samaa’s academic writing can be found in the collections including Arab Voices in Diaspora (2009) and Bad Girls and Transgressive Women in Popular Television, Fiction, and Film (2017). Her creative writing has appeared in I Speak For Myself: American Women on Being Muslim (2011) and The Body Is Not An Apology. Her poems can be found most recently in Enough! Poems of Resistance and Protest (Littoral Press, 2020) and her newly published chapbook Each Day Is Like an Anchor (2020).