Time Ago is an original play based on the work of Mary Ellen Chase written by Bundy Boit. Mary Ellen Chase, author and teacher, possessed a keen memory of her childhood days in the house on Union Street, Blue Hill. The play captures the simple life adventures that she and her three siblings experienced as they were growing up. This project is a collaboration between the Blue Hill Historical Society and the New Surry Theater commissioned by Word and supported by the Maine Arts Commission through a bicentennial grant.

You can only sing and sound like who you are. Instead of trying to sound like someone else, you might as well just play the hand you’re dealt and just be you. As Oscar Wilde said (and he sure did say a lot of things): “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” This workshop is intended to strengthen your natural writing voice and/or discover your voice if you haven’t readily come across it already. You have a natural writing voice—let’s figure out what its range is and what it might be best suited for.
Pre-registration required

What’s so funny about a woman pouring a glass of wine or a married couple chatting in bed? Liza Donnelly, who has been a cartoonist for The New Yorker for the past 40 years, is a wizard at finding the hilarious in everyday life, and an acclaimed political cartoonist to boot. “Donnelly’s cartoons are the best kind of funny,” says Susan Orlean, “sly, smart, and right on the money.” Donnelly's latest book, Very Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Women Cartoonists, tells the story of a century of pioneering women at the magazine. Donnelly will be joined in conversation by longtime New Yorker deputy editor Pamela Maffei McCarthy to discuss the role of women in cartooning, how the form has changed over the past four decades, and the opportunities technology offers artists for reaching new audiences in new ways.
Pre-registration required

Enjoy baked goods and other brunch staples—all surrounded by the beauty of an October morning in Maine in Humblebee Cafe’s greenhouse.

Born in Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrated with his family to the U.S. in 1975 while he was still a toddler. During his childhood in Pennsylvania, he was raised on what he describes as “steady diet of Saturday morning cartoons, John Hughes, Star Wars, Bones Brigade videos, and bootlegged cassettes of Minor Threat and TSOL.” He has been a Latin teacher, a punk rocker, a skateboarder, and one of the most sought-after tattoo artists in the Northeast. The popularity of his 2012 TEDx talk “Grammar, Identity, and the Dark Side of the Subjunctive,” featured on NPR’s Ted Radio Hour, led him to write Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and The Fight To Fit In, a memoir described by Kirkus as “Funny, poignant, and unsparing.” Join us for a conversation with Tran about being yourself, fitting in, and making a life of your own in a world that doesn’t always make that easy.

Come gather on the library lawn to prepare a meal and enjoy a special Stone Soup story time with Youth Services Librarian Claire and Anna Wind from Healthy Peninsula’s Magic Food Bus. We’ll practice our culinary skills using local veggies. Bring something to add to the pot or enjoy with the soup if you’d like!

Ah, teens and tweens. They read with their hearts and can sniff fakery a mile off. The challenge as an author is how to hook them early and keep them turning pages swiftly as they laugh, cry, cheer, and boo at every step along the story. In this two-hour workshop, using examples from a variety of contemporary YA novels, we’ll explore four key elements of young adult fiction.
Pre-registration required

Writers have more ways than ever before to publish their work. But which one should you choose? We’re bringing together a panel of professionals with expertise in diverse publishing options, from literary journals and big New York book publishers to small local presses and hybrid self-publishing. They’ll discuss the pros and cons of the many options for writers ready to send their words out into the world. Questions welcome!

Word’s Poetry Series 2022 presents a stellar line-up of poets, and for the first time, all readings will be held at the First Congregational Church of Blue Hill from 1:00 p.m. to 3:45 p.m. Each poet will read for 20 minutes. There will be a 20-minute intermission at 2:10, during which audience members are invited downstairs to Word’s Poetry Corner in the church basement, where you can purchase books, discuss what you’ve heard, and write an original haiku for the Poetry Post-it bulletin board.

Using a range of diverse materials and mediums, bookmaking explores the intersection of paperfolding, narrative, and visual design. Artists as young and as old as they come are welcome to participate.

How old are we? What age are we living in? What age do we belong to? How do our ideas about our age shape our sense of who we are and how we write? These are some of the questions we’ll address in this poetry workshop. We’ll read and discuss a few poems and then we’ll do some targeting writing. No prior experience with poetry required, all ages welcome.
Pre-registration is required

Author and illustrator, Jamie Hogan, will read her book, Skywatcher, and discuss her process, pastels, and finding patterns in nature. She will invite students to draw from observation and imagination to tell their own stellar stories.
Pre-registration required

Lily will lead a 2-hour fiction-writing class with the hope of providing inspiration and guidance for anyone who likes to write. Participants will explore several elements of the craft of writing short fiction, from dialogue to narrative arc to the intersection of fact and the imagination. Come prepared to do a lot of writing, have some fun, and meet others in your community who share this interest.
Pre-registration required

In personal essay writing, often an object--a photograph, a place, a painting, an event, a quote, a passage we've read, a bear--lies at the core of the evolving theme and a whole thread of association or observation follows. With the personal essay, you can even write about writer’s block—the lack of an idea becomes the idea itself! In this workshop, we'll explore the objects, lines, and titles that get an essay started, what makes an essay personal, and how to follow that idea where it needs to go.
Pre-registration is required

This workshop will meet Saturday from 9 am to noon, take a one-hour break, then reconvene for song-finishing from 1 to 4 pm. Emlen and Stookey will offer songwriting techniques in a group setting to aspiring songwriters of all levels and genres. If you only have a melody, we'll help you find a lyric. If you only have a lyric, we'll help you find a melody. Bring your ideas!
Pre-registration required

Whether she’s depicting the lives of anthropologists in New Guinea, the adventures of an American au pair in Paris, or the struggles of an aspiring writer who refuses to give up on her dream, Lily King’s fiction has been moving and charming readers for more than 20 years. The Washington Post described her most recent novel, Writers & Lovers as “wonderful, witty, heartfelt” and her newest book, Five Tuesdays in Winter, her first short story collection, as “a book about storytelling itself, a book for all of us.” Join us for a lively, intimate conversation with Lily about life and literature and the stories we tell about both.

Meet and mingle with festival goers and visiting authors while enjoying delicious food.

Midcoast Maine Book Arts Group will be exhibiting work by their members in the glass cases in the Howard Room during regular library hours.

Gearing up for Skywatcher author/illustrator Jamie Hogan’s Friday school visits and Saturday morning program at Blue Hill Public Library, Dwight Lanpher of Dark Sky Maine will lead a night sky tour of constellations and visible planets, using a laser pointer and Stellina group-observation station. Bring your own binoculars if you want (totally optional). Make sure you register so we have your email!

Join us for the kick-off of Word 2022 at the opening of the annual Word. Art. exhibit, featuring the work of Beatrix Gates, Tim Seabrook, & Leslie Cummins, Stuart Kestenbaum, Susan Webster, Kristie Billings, Elizabeth Sawyer, and William Rand. As a special treat, Beatrix Gates and William Rand will also be reading during the opening.