Community News & Updates May 2026

On By Robert E. StuttsIn News & Updates

ANNOUNCEMENTS

SAVE THE DATE: Stonecoast Community Story Jam for the Green Curtain Roadshow

Tuesday, June 23rd,7:00–9:00 p.m. in Portland, ME (Location TBA)

Join Stonecoast alums Jenny O’Connell (Creative Nonfiction, S’17) and Dave Patterson (Fiction, W’13) for a night of music and raucous storytelling as we raise our glasses (and some final funds!) to send our fellow Stonecoasters off on the Green Curtain Roadshow, a summer-long adventure creating art across U.S. northern forests. Come with a short (3 min) piece of writing you’d read out at a bar and throw your name in the hat for the chance to share it live on stage! Between story sets, enjoy live music by Jenny & the Buoys, featuring Dave on the famous Black Ram Guitar. Alumni and local community members are all invited—the more the merrier! 

CURRENT STUDENTS

Miles Meth (Fiction) has their first short story publication coming out this month in issue 50 of the Bellevue Literary Review. 

ALUMS 

Ed Boyle‘s (Fiction, W’09) short story “The Whale in The Channel” won The Letter Review Prize for Short Fiction. The story is here.

J Brooke (Poetry, S’19) was so happy to be back in the great state of Maine two weeks ago as the featured poet invited by Trans Poetic Archive to read at Second Rodeo in South Portland. They were thrilled that fellow alumni Katrina Ray-Saulis (now a candidate for the Maine State House), Heather Jones (who with some encouragement got up to read spectacularly), and Jen George (who’s always just fucking lovely) showed up to support. J’s book was just chosen by Ms. Magazine under June releases for 2026 Best books and is a selected title for Authors Night. PLEASE consider ordering a pre-sale copy of J’s debut book here: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side (at less than 15 bucks, it’s a cheaper host gift than a bottle of wine and MUCH lighter to carry…) and remember to write to them at J.Brooke@therumpus.net if you have a book review you’d like considered for publication in The Rumpus.

Diane Les Becquets (Fiction, S’05) has a new novel coming out with Simon & Schuster on May 5th. Where the Water Meets the Sky, which takes place on Michigan’s Upper Penninsula,has already received a starred review from Booklist, where it was compared to Janelle Brown’s What Kind of Paradise and Charlotte McConaghy’s Wild Dark Shore. From the book jacket: “Perfect for fans of the lush and tender nature writing of Helen MacDonald and Richard Powers, Where the Water Meets the Sky is a coming-of-age novel that expertly delves into the connection between our perception of ourselves and our natural environs. It is a paean to the vast and beautiful wildscape around us and to the power of community and the wisdom of love.

Nina B. Lichtenstein (Creative Nonfiction, S’20) is thrilled to have an essay in the anthology Relative Strangers: Inheritance, Identity, and the Meaning of Kinship (ELJ Editions, June 23rd)—where 28 acclaimed and emerging writers explore the transformative experience of encountering unknown close relatives. You can learn more about it here. Nina is also offering a “Six Months, Six Workshops, Six Stories” series for (only) six writers who would like to work on embodied writing in a small group. More info HERE. Finally, Maine Writers Studio’s next Literary Salon & Open Mic (at Walter’s Café in Brunswick, ME) is on May 27, 2026. Welcome!

Nadja Maril (Fiction, W’20) is pleased to share that three of her poems, “Conch Shells,” “Pirates on Little Cayman,” and “Spring Contemplation” were published in Issue 198 of miniMag, and that “Prayer for Safe Landing” will be featured in the upcoming “Planes, Boats, Cars and Trains” issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine.

Ellen Meeropol (Fiction, W’06) will join the faculty of The Hobart Festival of Women Writers, June 5-7, 2026, with a reading from her new novel, Sometimes an Island, and a workshop on innovative structures for politically-engaged fiction. Upcoming events for Sometimes an Island include:

  • May 14, Village Story Salon at FIT Campus Store, NYC
  • June 2, Writers Night Out, Northampton, MA
  • June 9, Porter Square Bookstore, Cambridge, MA
  • June 11, A Writer’s Night, Longmeadow, MA
  • June 17, The Bookstore, Lenox, MA
  • July 2, Vinalhaven Public Library, Vinalhaven, ME

Details and more events at https://www.ellenmeeropol.com/events.htm.

Marisca Pichette (Popular Fiction, S’21)celebrated two book birthdays this spring. Her debut novella, Every Dark Cloud, turned one year old in March, and her poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, turned three in April! In recognition of these and more exciting things to come, she started a Patreon at long last. Check it out here!

Jess Reilly-Moman (Creative Nonfiction, W’25) was awarded a Dibner Fellowship to attend the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Black Fly Writers Retreat and be a part of Brandon Keim’s workshop on nature writing. You can find her on Substack: Of Ponies and Persistence. 

The Wyoming Arts Council has awarded an Arts in State Parks fellowship to sid sibo (sidney woods, Fiction, W’19) at Hot Springs State Park, where the culmination of a four-day September residency will be an on-site public fiction workshop titled “Off Normal’s Edge.” These fellowships are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of the nation’s 250th celebration. 

Linda K. Sienkiewicz (Fiction, S’09) has an essay on What Three Star Reviews Really Mean to Authors on Jane Friedman’s website—because when authors interpret three stars as failure, we risk misunderstanding our own audience. Also, her poem titled “Like Learning a New Language” appears in Midwest Review 13.

Kevin St. Jarre (Popular  Fiction, S’10) has a signed a contract for his new novel, hitting bookstore shelves in September 2026, titled The Ghosts of Riddell House. This will be his 8th novel published by Encircle Publications, and his 11th novel overall (the first three were with Berkley Books). He is currently revising his latest novel, with the working title “What We Sing is Enough.” For more information, go to KevinStJarre.net

Kara Storti (Fiction, S’06) announces the forthcoming publication of her sophomore young adult novel, The Electric Life of Lavender Lewis (Hachette), releasing May 5, 2026. A work of magical realism inspired by Kara’s lived experience with epilepsy, the novel follows a teenage girl navigating grief, first love, and identity as her seizures begin delivering messages from a mysterious boy, blurring the line between reality and magic. The novel has already received strong early praise, including a starred review from School Library Journal, which called it “an incredibly moving fiction story” and “an important novel about the complexities of life with epilepsy, the challenges of advocating for your own medical treatment, and accepting the loss of loved ones.” Additional praise has come from Kirkus Reviews, Booklist, and Publishers Weekly. Kara is also the author of the award-winning Tripping Back Blue, recipient of the Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for Young Adult Fiction. With The Electric Life of Lavender Lewis, she continues building a body of work recognized for its compassionate portrayal of young adults navigating addiction, chronic illness, and resilience. Upcoming release events include May 5 at Copper Dog Books in Beverly, MA, and May 13 at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, MA, where Kara will appear in conversation with Elizabeth Searle.

Lisa C. Taylor’s (Poetry, S’04) second novel, Like Gravity, Like Love, is under contract and will be published in June 2027. Lisa is the co-director of the Mesa Verde Writers Conference and the Mesa Verde Literary Festival in Mancos, Colorado. The conference dates have changed and will be September 2, 3, 4, 2026, at Deer Hill Expeditions, a beautiful outdoor education center minutes from the quaint town of Mancos. Registration is open. The conference features four writing workshops a day with fiction, nonfiction, and poetry faculty plus a publishing panel on the last day. The workshop topics are posted on the web site. All seven meals will be included in the $500 fee, but accommodations are extra. Deer Hill has information on reasonably priced accommodations on the conference web site below, and there are also accommodations in town. This conference can only accommodate 40 students so register early! There are scholarships available including one I funded in memory of former Stonecoast faculty member Baron Wormser. To apply for that scholarship, please send two writing samples of no more than three pages each in two different genres (like fiction and poetry) to mesaverdewriters@gmail.com with the subject line “Baron Wormser Scholarship.” The Mesa Verde Literary Festival follows the conference on Saturday, September 5. Any writer with at least one published book is welcome to apply. We can accommodate 50 writers, so apply early. Writers can sign up to do author talks or readings or serve on a panel. There is a book fair and up to three books for each visiting author can be featured. There will be a teen poetry slam and a keynote speaker at night. All events are in local businesses in the town of Mancos, a designated creative district with galleries and restaurants. It is very walkable. Please email using the above email if you have any questions. We have had Stonecoasters participate every year! Lisa was also the poetry editor of the regional anthology Four Corners Voices which won the Colorado Book Award for 2025 and was just chosen by Colorado Humanities and the Colorado Center for the Book to be included in the “Great Reads from Great Places” list for the 2026 National Book Festival of the Library of Congress. 

Melanie Viets (Creative Nonfiction, W’17) had a short essay recently published in Off Assignment. “5:00 a.m. on a Vermont Hill Farm” appears in the Witching Hour column, accompanied by a Jane Demarest illustration. Mel was also shortlisted for the 2026 Shannaghe Fellowship in Care and has been granted a solo residency in Belfast, Maine, at the conclusion of the growing and grazing season. 

FACULTY 

Aaron Hamburger‘s (Creative Nonfiction, Fiction) new novel The Shiva Bandit is now scheduled for an April 6, 2027, release by HarperCollins. Mark your calendars! Also, his new story “You Don’t Applaud Mediocrity” is coming out next month in the anthology Beltway: An Anthology of Writers from the Washington, DC Metro Area.

Elizabeth Searle (Scriptwriting, Fiction) has several events coming up and would love to see Stonecoasters along the way. 

For updates, please visit www.elizabethsearle.net

Former Stonecoast Faculty member Suzanne Strempek Shea (Creative Nonfiction) will be doing lots of readings this fall with her forthcoming memoir, Compositions: A Memoir in 42 Essays by 1 Kid on Her 8 Years in Catholic School, Handed in 60 Years Late (PAHA Books). Want to host her at your bookstore, library or school? Contact her at sess7@comcast.net. As for teaching, but she’ll be working with writers in at only four events this year, one in Ireland and three in Maine, all with some of the most super Stonecoast souls:

Suzanne sends many thanks to Stonecoast alum Robert Stutts, who’s been creating this newsletter for nearly 14 years now, all out of the goodness of his heart. Let’s all say, “Thank you, Robert!”

Leave a comment