Please join Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, SPACE, and friends as we celebrate the launch of Universe, Vast Universe: An Anthology of Immigrant Voices in Maine edited by Nicole Pomeroy. The night will feature readings, food, community, and copies of the anthology for sale.
Readings by:
Kendric Chua, Aiden Dumitru, Kerem Durdag, Leela Marie Hidier, Tanuja Desai Hidier, Annaliese Jakimides, Shir Kehila, Gianna Milstein-Jones, Leila Nadir, Ning Sullivan, Jenna Dela Cruz Vendil, & Omar Yusuf.
General admission tickets are $5.
Limited free tickets available.
Early praise for the anthology:
"This is an arrestingly powerful anthology that reminds us that the best antidote to authoritarianism is complexity. These essays, poems, stories achieve what all great literature does: it refuses to be put neatly in any single box."
- Zahir Janmohamed, author of The Permitted Hours (forthcoming from Haymarket Books)
“Polyphonic, multivocal, beautifully harmonious. This collection is full of overlapping echoes of stories and memories, dreams and promises. Universe, Vast Universe speaks so powerfully to these heartbreaking and soul crushing times we’re in.”
- Samaa Abdurraqib, author of Towards a Retreat and Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council.
“This book is the part of the iceberg the world never sees. We talk about immigration like it's the surface: the arrival, the achievement, the smile in the photo. But underneath is where the real story lives. The sacrifices nobody watched us make, the doubts we never said out loud, the hope we kept anyway. These pages hold that hidden depth. Written with an intergenerational lens, they're the stories we usually only tell around the dinner table, in our prayer houses, among the people who already know. Struggle and resilience. Longing and belonging. Faith that held when nothing else did. This is what it actually costs, and what it actually means, to build a life far from where you began. Welcome into our iceberg. This is the story behind the story.”
- Pious Ali, Portland City Counselor and Community Leader
