The Maine Crime Wave is open for early-bird registration through June 30. The MCW happens on Saturday, September 27 from 8:30 to 4:30 PM, with some optional activities on Friday afternoon/evening. Click below to register for $90, which includes coffee/tea and lunch.
A 2-Day Prose Workshop with Onnesha Roychoudhuri
A 1-Day Poetry & Printmaking Workshop with Éireann Lorsung
A 5-Week Memoir Workshop with Eiren Caffall
A 2-Week Poetry Workshop with Sarah V. Schweig
A 2-Week Fiction Workshop with Janika Oza
A 5-Week Yoga & Writing Workshop with Arisa White
A 1-Day Business of Writing Workshop with Anna Worrall
A 1-Day Memoir Workshop with Mira Ptacin
A 1-Day Picture Book Writing Workshop with Ryan Tahmaseb
A 1-day Poetry & Memoir Workshop with Jane Wong
A 1-Day Poetry Workshop with Estha Weiner
A 5-Week Hybrid Nonfiction Workshop with Meredith McCarroll
A 2-Week Poetry Workshop with Award-winning Poet Lauren Saxon
A 1-Day All-Genre Writing & Craft Workshop with Emma Zimmerman and Clare Magalaner
A 1-Day Fiction & Nonfiction Workshop with Tanya Whiton
A 1-Day All-Genre Outdoor Writing Workshop with Sarah Holman & Lewis Robinson
A 1-Day Business of Writing Workshop with Jen Dupree
A 1-Day Fiction Workshop with Lori Ostlund
A 1-Day Picture Book Workshop with Lucky Platt
A 5-Week Fiction Workshop with Clif Travers
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.
Please join the MWPA for our favorite night of the year, a community celebration of great writers and publishers from all over Maine. We will laugh, cry, and applaud excellent work from the last year. We are excited to bring the awards back to the Bangor Area for the first time since 2019. Special guests will help announce this year’s winners as we celebrate talented writers, editors, and literary professionals.
Doors open at 6 PM for a reception with snacks and a cash bar; the ceremony begins at 7 PM. Finalist books will be for sale.
The event is free, but we ask that you RSVP by clicking the orange button below. Seating is limited. If you would like to make a suggested ticket donation, we appreciate it!
To to attend online, please click the yellow button below to register for the Zoom link.
A 1-Day Fiction Workshop with Ahsan Butt
Please join us for the hybrid edition of MWPA’s beloved GATHER event series! On Wednesday, May 21, 2025 at 6:00 PM, MWPA members & friends can attend an in-person Gather at one of several locations around the state OR choose to participate in an online Gather.
To sign up for an 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 in-person 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.
POETRY
Host: Jeri Theriault
RSVP HERE
AROOSTOOK
Host: Kim Wright (wrightk@sad1.org)
Location: The Library House potluck (228 state St, Presque Isle)
BANGOR
Host: Annaliese Jakimides (a.jakimides@gmail.com)
Location: Sea Dog Brewing (26 Front St, Bangor)
BELFAST
Host: Rob Bywater (robbywater@fastmail.us )
Location: anodyne book shop (175 W Main St, Searsport)
BLUE HILL
Host: Marie Epply & Sarah Pebworth (mmepply@yahoo.com, sapebworth@gmail.com)
Location: Marlintini's Grill (83 Mines Rd, Blue Hill)
BRUNSWICK AREA
Hosts: Alix Morris, Peter Owen ( alix.morris@gmail.com, peterowen326@gmail.com)
Location: Sea Dog Brewing (1 Bowdoin Mill Island, Topsham)
DAMARISCOTTA
Host: Andrea Vassallo (andrea.granted@gmail.com)
Location: Newcastle Publick House (52 Main St, Newcastle)
LUBEC
Host: John Rule (jdrule@lubecscribbler.com)
Location: Lubec Brewing Co. (41 S Water St, Lubec)
SOUTH PORTLAND
Host: Jeanne Julian (jmcjulian@yahoo.com)
Location: Bridgeway Restaurant (71 Ocean St., South Portland)
WATERVILLE
Host: Holly Zadra (hollyzadra@gmail.com)
Location: The Lounge of Front & Main (9 Main St, Waterville)
A 5-Week Online Poetry Workshop with Andy Chen
A 4-Week Multigenre Flash Workshop with Nina Barufaldi and Leah Scott-Kirby
A 5-Week Nonfiction Workshop with Theresa Okokon
A 1-Day Fiction Workshop with Steve Almond
A 1-Day Creative Nonfiction Writing Workshop with Holly Haworth
A Weekly Writing Meditation Workshop with Claire Millikin
A 1-Day Multigenre Writing and Birding Workshop with Samaa Abdurraqib
A 2-Day Novel Workshop with Gina Chung
A 2-Day Poetry Workshop with Anthony Dolan Scott
LORE is a space for the BIPOC community to connect, create, and collaborate.
In honor of the priceless and intangible legacy left to us by the beloved ancestor Ashley Bryan (left) and upheld by so many BIPOC creatives, our next LORE event will be a reading and discussion, cohosted by our partners at Mechanics Hall and featuring (clockwise from top left) , Alex (Johan Alexander), Liz Iversen, Coco McCracken and Leila Christine Nadir. These Fellows will be sharing their original writing with us and connecting with each other and with our community though conversation about their work and approaches to writing in these uncertain times.
Please note: This event is open to the public, and all who celebrate our diverse creative community are welcome and invited to attend. Doors open at 6pm.
For more about the Ashley Bryan Fellowship Program, please find our history and values statement.
A 4-Week Online Generative Ekphrastic Prose Workshop with Anne Elliott
A 5-Week Online Poetry Workshop with Annie Wenstrup
A 5-Week In-Person Poetry Workshop with Steve Langan
A 5-Week Memoir Workshop with Leila Nadir
A 1-Day Fiction Workshop with Judson Merrill
A 4-Week Generative Poetry & Prose Workshop with River 瑩瑩 Dandelion
A 5-Week Poetry Workshop with Jefferson Navicky
A Weekly Yoga and Writing Workshop with Meredith McCarroll
A 1-Day Writing Workshop with Shana Youngdahl
A 5-Week Advanced CNF Workshop with Michael Burke
A 3-Week Fiction Workshop with Meghan Gilliss
A 1-Day Business of Writing Panel with Jen Dupree
Please join MWPA and Longfellow Books for a special event with Rosa Lane, who will be reading from her 4th poetry collection, Called Back, a sequence of poems written in theatrical monologue in queer conversation with Emily Dickinson. Called Back, a title representing the last two words Dickinson wrote, may be considered a "docudrama" of sorts in poetic form and is based on most recent research by scholars bringing the LGBTQ significance of Dickinson to light. Lane's intensive 5-year odyssey with Dickinson extended through the pandemic.
Called Back (Tupelo Press, 2024) is praised by poet Adrian Blevins as a "radical homage [to Dickinson]...that gives back the 'Feral / utterances' Lane suggests her circumstances and time in history forbade her."
For more info and/or to purchase Called Back at Longfellow, click HERE.
Rosa Lane, poet and architect, was raised in coastal Maine as the daughter of a lobsterman. She is the author of four poetry collections including Called Back (Tupelo Press, 2024), Chouteau's Chalk (U. of Georgia Press, 2019, winner of the Georgia Poetry Prize); Tiller North (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2016, winner of the 2017 National Indie Excellence Book Award); and Roots and Reckonings, a chapbook, (published by Granite Press East with a grant from Maine Arts Commission). Lane's most recent work was named Best of Poetry for the 2024 Geminga Prize, winner of the 2023 Morton Marcus Memorial Poetry Prize, and selected finalist for the 2023 Gregory O'Donoghue International Poetry Prize (Cork, Ireland) among other awards. Her work has appeared in the Asheville Poetry Review, Five Points, Nimrod, Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, RHINO, Third Coast, and elsewhere. She lives in South Portland with her wife. Website: www.rosalane.com
Free event no RSVP.
Betsy Sholl’s tenth collection of poetry was As If a Song Could Save You (University of Wisconsin Press in fall of 2022). Her ninth collection of poetry was House of Sparrows: New and Selected Poems (University of Wisconsin, 2019), winner of the Four Lakes Prize. Other awards include a Maine Book Award for Poetry, The Felix Pollak Prize, the AWP Prize for Poetry, an NEA Fellowship. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College of Fine Arts and served as Poet Laureate of Maine from 2006 to 2011. She was awarded the 2020 Distinguished Achievement Award from Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Southern Maine in 2022.
