In the Reading Room: A Feast of Poetry and Song

Carol Willette Bachofner, is an award-winning poet, memoirist, photographer, and watercolorist who served as Rockland’s Poet Laureate. Author of 7 books of poetry, most recently Test Pattern, a Fantod of Prose Poems, Carol offers poetry and craft tips at carolbach.substack.com. 

Keenan Boscoe is a writer and designer living in Lincolnville, Maine. He is the owner of Topo: Paper & Post, a stationery and bookstore in downtown Camden, and graduated from Colby College with a degree in fine art & geology. Keenan is interested in land, place, deep time, and a good notebook. www.paperpo.st

Mark S. Burrows is an award-winning translator, poet, editor, and speaker. His recent publications include The Chance of Home. Poems, Meister Eckhart’s Book of Darkness and Light, and The Wandering Radiance: Selected Poems of Hilde Domin (2023). He is the co-founder and co-director, with Meg Weston, of the Camden Festival of Poetry. www.soul-in-sight.org

Ellen Goldsmith’s recent book, Left Foot, Right Foot, is an illness and recovery story in 28 poems. Her first book, No Pine Tree in This Forest Is Perfect, won the 1997 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and in anthologies. Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York, she lives in Cushing, Maine.

Margaret Haberman lives and writes in Belfast, Maine. She is by profession an American Sign Language interpreter. Her poems have been published in the Island Journal, the journal Spiritus, and selected for the Maine Public Radio program Poems from Here.

Erin Mayer is the author of two novels, YOUTHJUICE (under the name E.K. Sathue, forthcoming, Hell’s Hundred/Soho Press) and FAN CLUB (Mira/HarperCollins). Her work has appeared in Bustle, Travel + Leisure, Better Homes & Gardens, Literary Hub, CrimeReads, Business Insider, and Man Repeller, among others. She lives in Camden with her partner, Benjamin Perry, and their beloved haunted doll, Persephone.

Benjamin Perry is the author of Cry, Baby: Why Our Tears Matter. An award-winning writer, his work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Slate, The Huffington Post, and more, and he has appeared as a cultural commentator on outlets like MSNBC and NPR. www.benjaminjperry.com

Louisa Stancioff was born and raised in Chesterville Maine, and has emerged as a gifted writer with a cinematic eye for richly detailed, emotionally-charged character studies. She now lives in Warren and recently released her first album “When We Were Looking”. You can find it anywhere you listen to music. She has just returned from an opening tour following her album release in Rockland on April 12. www.louisastancioff.net

Meg Weston poetry expresses her passion for geology and stories. Her most recent book, Magma Intrusions, was published in 2023. She retired after 8 years as president of Maine Media, and currently runs www.thepoetscorner.org. She’s also co-founder and co-director, with Mark Burrows, of the Camden Festival of Poetry, and a member of the board at Millay House Rockland. www.volcanoes.com