ANNOUNCEMENTS

GREEN CURTAIN REVIEW

Eben Thomas (Multi-Genre, S’05) writes: We are accepting pieces for our Green Curtain Review Anthology, to be released digitally and in print in January 2027. Submissions are open through September 30th, 2026. We accept pieces both written & visual in any genre.

Theme: Refugia
We seek pieces that are deeply informed and influenced by experiences and relationships with the natural world. Whether this be a sublime landscape, or your local park, we want pieces created in and about nature. What does refuge mean to you? What do you wish to protect? What does the natural environment that surrounds you mean to you, your characters, your art and community?

Pieces can be a few lines to 5,000 words. We can publish a limited number of long pieces, and visual works will do best if they appear well both in black and white and color.

• Submit your work to greencurtainreview@gmail.com
• Include in the subject line: Title of your piece & your name
• Poem, flash, and visual submissions can include up to 3 pieces
• Submit as Word or Google Doc; PDF for visual
• Creative nonfiction and academic non-fiction welcome
• Bios not required for submission
• Submission is free, but donations allow us to fund the printing of the review and our non-profit work (greencurtainreview.org). Donations do not affect publication chances.

ALUMS 

J Brooke’s debut poetry book, I Can Tell You the Version that Will Make You Take My Side, just received a starred Kirkus Review which kind of shocked them…  Anyone in Vermont this week?? Pls come to J’s book event in Middlebury on Thursday. And/or their reading and signing in Manchester on Friday. In their role as Book Reviews Editor for The Rumpus, J encourages members of the Stonecoast community with interest in writing a sharp, get-noticed book review for an upcoming small press title to contact them at J.Brooke@therumpus.net 

Libby Cudmore‘s (Creative Nonfiction/Popular Fiction, W’10) hybrid memoir/cultural criticism Daddies’ Girl: How 90 Swing Revival Saved My Soul will be published in Spring 2027 by Barrelhouse.

David Hewitt‘s (Popular Fiction, S’09) story “The Whispers” appears in Issue 6 of Struggle magazine.

Nina B. Lichtenstein (Creative Nonfiction, S’20) and Maine Writers Studio are happy to host not one but THREE Stonecoast peeps in upcoming Literary Salons & Open Mics in Brunswick, Maine. On September 16, Judy Sandler (Creative Nonfiction, W’21) will talk about her fresh-out memoir, What Kind of Mother: A Reckoning, and on October 14, Suzanne Strempek Shea and Elizabeth Searle will share the spotlight (because that’s what literary sister do!) and read from their new works, Compositions (a memoir) and Lock Her Up (a novel), respectively. Find out more HERE. THIS COMING SUNDAY, Nina is offering another generative writing workshop, “The Places We Belong (or Not)” (in person or on Zoom). For in-person participants, lunch is included. More info HERE.

Nadja Maril (Fiction, W’20) is pleased to share that her micro creative nonfiction piece “Kiss Al Dente” will be appearing in the September/Fall issue of Instant Noodles Literary Magazine. Nadja, who lives in Annapolis, Maryland, wants to remind fellow writers that Roundtable Writer’s presentations at the Maryland Hall for the Arts are continuing into 2027. Writers in Maryland who would like to connect to be part of this event or future events, please contact Nadja at Nadjamaril21@gmail.com.

Ellen Meeropol (Fiction, W’06) is delighted to once again work on the WriteAngles Writers Conference, to be held October 24, 2026, at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, MA. Registration is now open for the one-day event, featuring a keynote by novelist Essie Chambers, agent meetings, and dozens of panels and workshops. Ellen will moderate the Book Promotion Bootcamp panel featuring Suzanne Strempek Shea, Jendi Reiter, and Randy Susan Meyers. Program details and registration at https://writeanglesconference.org. 

Catharine H. Murray (Creative Nonfiction, S’17) will be co-teaching an online generative poetry class with award-winning poet Sarah Carson on September 19th. Reaping the Harvest Live Seminar on Zoom will meet from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. This retreat is for poets at any level who want a grounded, supportive space to generate new work and begin revising slowly and with intention. This is an all-levels class built around community, creative safety, and the pleasure of making something new.

John Christopher Nelson (Fiction, S’15) has a day-dreamy bit of flash fiction, “Windchimes Trivialize Weather,” featured in the inaugural edition of Art House Anthology. Check out the whole issue here: Vol. 1: In Dreams. John’s essay about his family homestead and estrangement from his uncle, “Echo Ranch in Ruin,” will be featured in a forthcoming issue of Jagged Edge. Most excitingly, John’s story “Glenn’s Floral Arrangements” was selected as an Honorable Mention for Best Concept in the NECKSNAP x M E N A C E Emerging Voices in Speculative Fiction Prize. The story will be featured in the forthcoming fifth issue of M E N A C E. 

Marisca Pichette (Popular Fiction, S’21)had the pleasure of reading from her novella, Every Dark Cloud, with Strong Women, Strange Worlds online on August 20. It was a fabulous evening and she was delighted to see fellow Stonecoaster Liz Levin there! In publication news, Marisca’s short story “Her Finished Wings” was reprinted in the Penguin anthology The Elements of Dark Academia alongside a stunning collection of horror authors including Carmen Maria Machado, Stephanie Feldman, Brandon O’Brien, and many more.

Bruce Pratt (Fiction, S’04) has several upcoming publications: “Tight Lines,” a tribute to longtime scholar, poet, professor, and avid fly fisherman, Don Johnson, will appear in the fall issue of Aethlon: The Journal of the Sport Literature Association. The issue will also include four of Pratt’s poems, “Hunting After a School Shooting,” “One Stroke,” “Pampered,” and “Barney Quigley.” Two poems, “Half an Hour Before Sunset” and “I Should Like to Pass in a Fall Field,” will appear in the next issue of Sport Literate. “Martha 1914” will appear in the November edition of Gray’s Sporting Journal.

J. Stephen (Steve) Rhodes (Poetry, W’11) will be giving a series of readings from his fifth poetry collection, Earthen Vessels, in San Antonio, Austin, and Amarillo, Texas, September 8th–16th. He is also happy to announce that his first collection, The Time I Didn’t Know What to Do Next, is being reissued by Pine Row Press in early September.

Catherine Schmitt (Creative Nonfiction, W’12) is winding down the summer book tour for Trees of Acadia: The Past, Present, & Future of Park Forests, published in June by Down East Books. But wait! There’s more: a story on the 60th anniversary of the Allagash Wilderness Waterway for Maine Environment, an update on the sturgeon situation for The Working Waterfront, and a poem about almost being a Bicentennial Baby in the “Carnival” edition of NonBinary Review. Catherine was recently awarded the Chatwold Historicus Award for natural and human history writing from the Writers Guild of Acadia.

Library Journal reviewed the upcoming 20 Over 60 anthology edited by Beth Weinhouse and David Galef, which was the first time sid sibo (sidney woods; Fiction, W’19) realized her Dingle Peninsula flash piece “Incongruous” would find itself in the company of stories by the likes of Paul Theroux and Joyce Carol Oates. Curious readers can also find out more in this piece on the AARP website’s list of best Fall books. While waiting for the anthology’s arrival in October, readers can experience the September publication of sibo’s (un)Familiar: stories collection, which 2025’s winner of the John Burroughs prize for nature essay DL Duda (Fiction, W’19) calls “Beautiful, complex, vibrant.”

Michelle Soucy (Fiction, S’10) is excited to share that she has accepted a position teaching writing in the English Department at Fitchburg State University beginning this fall. She is delighted to be returning to the college classroom, fulfilling a longtime goal of combining her passion for writing, mentoring, and education. Michelle hopes to pass along to her students the same love of writing and sense of literary community that she received from her Stonecoast teachers and mentors.

We are getting ready for the September 5th Mesa Verde Literary Festival in beautiful downtown Mancos, Colorado. Fifty writers from all over the U.S. are traveling here to offer panels and author chats. The Poet Laureate of Colorado, Crisosto Apache, will be reading, as will Nina Simon, an award-winning mystery writer. This event is free and open to the public. All events are held in area businesses. Lisa C. Taylor (Poetry, S’04) will be on two panels and in an author chat with fellow writer Monica Barron. If any Stonecoasters or faculty members who have at least one book wish to be a part of this next year, contact us after the first of the year for more information. Also, Lisa will be on a poetry panel at the Southwest Writers Libros of Enchantment Book Fiesta on October 31st in Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

FACULTY 

Aaron Hamburger‘s new novel The Shiva Bandit is now available for preorder! Aaron says: “Inspired by the experience of my grandfather’s cousin, The Shiva Bandit tells the story of a woman who flees her Polish shtetl during World War II with her two daughters across the Soviet Union to Uzbekistan, where she struggles to survive. The book has already earned strong advance praise: “beautifully written,” “haunting, mesmerizing” “a novel that will seep into your dreams…” Aaron is also teaching a unique class on Nancy Mitford’s Love in a Cold Climate, the real Downton Abbey! Hey, who doesn’t love Downton Abbey? However, novelist Nancy Mitford knew what was really going on in those country manors, and she spills the tea in this delightful and witty romantic comedy. And we’ll have a special guest visitor. Sign up now! The class, hosted by Politics and Prose Bookstore, meets online September 23rd and 30th.

Elizabeth Searle’s new literary thriller novel Lock Her Up is out in the USA on October 6th. Below is a partial list of events for the book in October, two in Maine. For updates, see Elizabeth’s newly re-vamped website at www.elizabethsearle.net

• October 6 – Lock Her Up release date in the USA — Book becomes available for sale (Lock Her Up has been translated into French and Swedish and released overseas)
• October 7 at 7:00 p.m. – Book Launch Reading and Party at Newtonville Books — Elizabeth ‘In Conversation’ with Marianne Leone, actress and author
• October 14 – Walter’s Cafe; Brunswick, Maine: Maine Writers Studio Literary Salon — Reading at star Stonecoast alum Nina Lichtenstein‘s Literary Salon; Elizabeth will read with Stonecoast icon Suzanne Strempek Shea, followed by Open Mic 
• October 16 – A Mighty Blaze — live interview with Bestselling author Caroline Leavitt at 4:00 p.m.; available for viewing on film on A Mighty Blaze website and YouTube channel 
• October 23-24 – Word Festival in Blue Hill, Maine — Elizabeth will be leading a workshop Oct 24th; her book will be available at the Fest.

Former longtime faculty member Suzanne Strempek Shea will be doing book events this fall throughout Western Massachusetts and Maine as she celebrates the launch of her twelfth book, Compositions: A Memoir in 42 Essays by 1 Kid on Her 8 Years in Catholic School, Handed in 60 Years Late (PAHA Books), which will take readers back to the author’s childhood in the Western Massachusetts Polish-American enclave of Three Rivers. You can catch Suzanne at any of the readings listed on her website (www.suzannestrempekshea.org), which will include the October 14th, 6:00 p.m. reading she’ll do with her literary soul sis, Stonecoast founding faculty member Elizabeth Searle, at the Maine Writers Studio Literary Salon at Walter’s Cafe in Brunswick, Maine. (We love that the Studio, which was created by and is run by Stonecoast grad Nina Lichtenstein!) From October 15 to 18, Suzanne will be directing the annual Iota Short Forms Writing Conference at Cobscook Institute in Trescott, Maine, which will feature faculty members and Stonecoast grads Penny Guisinger, who founded the conference in 2013 as her third-semester project, and Alexis Paige, plus former faculty member Lewis Robinson. Suzanne will oversee the optional retreat that will follow the conference from October 18 to 22. Info here.