USM’S STONECOAST MFA PROGRAM INVITES YOU TO EXPLORE THE POWER OF TRANSFORMATIVE WRITING, READING, AND ENGAGEMENT
With Special Guests:
LILY KING, MORGAN TALTY, AND ARISA WHITE
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 26th at 7:30 PM
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
We all strive to author impactful work, yet achieving this goal can be challenging. What if, to create writing that changes lives, the writer must be open to letting the work change their own life? Join us for an enlightening reading and discussion on the transformative power of writing, reading, and engagement.
Lily King is the award-winning author of five novels. Her most recent novel, Writers & Lovers, was published on March 3rd, 2020, and her first collection of short stories, Five Tuesdays in Winter, will be released on November 9, 2021. Her 2014 novel Euphoria won the Kirkus Award, The New England Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Award. Euphoria was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2014 by The New York Times Book Review. It was included in TIME's Top 10 Fiction Books of 2014, as well as on Amazon, NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Publishers Weekly, and Salon’s Best Books of 2014.
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation. His debut short story collection, Night of the Living Rez, won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kaufman Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the New England Book Award, the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Honor, became a national bestseller, and was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award, the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award, and The Story Prize. His writing has appeared in The Georgia Review, Granta, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative, and elsewhere. Talty is an assistant professor of English in Creative Writing and Native American and Contemporary Literature at the University of Maine, Orono, and he is on the faculty at the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing. His debut novel Fire Exit will be published by (Tin House Books) on June 4th, and both the novel and story collection will be translated into seven languages.
Cave Canem graduate fellow Arisa White received her MFA from UMass, Amherst, and is the author of Perfect on Accident, You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, Black Pearl, Post Pardon, A Penny Saved, and Hurrah's Nest. Her poetry has been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award, NAACP Image Award, California Book Award, and Wheatley Book Award. The chapbook “Fishing Walking” & Other Bedtime Stories for My Wife won the inaugural Per Diem Poetry Prize. She's the co-author of Biddy Mason Speaks Up, the second book in the Fighting for Justice series for young readers. Arisa is an associate professor of creative writing at Colby College.
MECHANICS' HALL
519 CONGRESS STREET, PORTLAND, MAINE
For more information, please email robin.talbot@maine.edu or
call 207-780-4428.
Special thanks to Mechanics' Hall and Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance for their invaluable support!