The Authors Guild Foundation returns to Maine this summer for the third season of the Pascal Hall Author Series in partnership with the Lesher Family Foundation and Maine Media Workshops + College. Emily St. John Mandel will be in conversation with Gibson Fay-LeBlanc. Mandel is the author of six novels, most recently Sea of Tranquility, which has been translated into 25 languages and was selected by President Barack Obama as one of his favourite books of 2022. Her previous novels include The Glass Hotel, which was also on Obama’s list, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and has been translated into 26 languages; and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, won the 2015 Arthur C. Clarke Award among other honours, has been translated into 36 languages, and aired as a limited series on HBO Max.

The event will begin with cocktails at 5:00 pm, followed by a conversation at 5:30 pm, and a reception and book signing at 6:30pm. Register here.

Back Cove Books in Portland hosts a book launch for Claire Millikin’s Magicicada with fellow poets Bill Schulz, Betsy Sholl, and Gibson Fay-LeBlanc

There is nothing like a poem to inspire, heal and provoke. As Major Jackson says, “a poem advances our humanity in language”. Blue Raven Gallery’s Reading Series brings to the central Maine coast a reading series steeped deep in poetry’s oral tradition featuring some of the most prominent and distinguished voices nationally and regionally. Housed in Blue Raven Gallery’s one-of-a-kind space and surrounded by a curated collection of some of the country’s best painting, photography, sculpture and contemporary art. RSVP here.

Gibson will read with Edward Hirsch. Hirsch has published ten books of poems, most recently Gabriel: A Poem (2014) and Stranger by Night (2020). He has also published six prose books about poetry, including 100 Poems to Break Your Heart (2021) and The Heart of American Poetry (2022). Hirsch has won, amongst other things, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the National Jewish Book Award, the Pablo Neruda Medal of Honor, and a MacArthur Fellowship. He taught at Wayne State University and the University of Houston and now serves as President of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.