Community News & Updates June 2026

ANNOUNCEMENTS As we prepare for Stonecoast’s Summer 2026 residency, taking place June 19–27, 2026, we’re excited to share a few highlights that promise to make our return to the USM Portland campus especially meaningful and memorable.  We are thrilled to welcome back distinguished guest Dante Micheaux, alongside Stonecoast alum Penny Guisinger (Creative Nonfiction, S'19). Joining …

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Community News & Updates May 2026

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 …

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Community News & Updates April 2025

CURRENT STUDENTS Kim Autrey’s (Popular Fiction) short story "Parfum," written under her pen name of Kim Castle, has been accepted by The Yard: Crime blog and will appear this month.   ALUMS  Elisabeth Tova Bailey’s (Creative Nonfiction, S’15) natural history memoir The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating is having a delightful time frolicking with other animal …

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Community News & Updates March 2025

ANNOUNCEMENTS IOTA SHORT FORMS BEGINS SUNDAY WRITING SESSIONS Penny Guisinger (Creative Nonfiction, S’13) and Suzanne Strempek Shea (Faculty 2003-2021) are offering free monthly online writing sessions through Iota Short Forms. Led alternately by these two Iota Co-Directors, plus some special guests here and there, the sessions will consist of writing time with or without prompts. You’ll …

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Community News & Updates September 2023

ANNOUNCEMENTS CLIFFORD ROYAL JOHNS (POPULAR FICTION, W’18) Cliff’s wife, Barbara Johns, wanted to share this sad news with the Stonecoast community: Cliff got ill at the end of April and died of liver cancer June 23. He was never in pain, but he quickly lost over 50 pounds, was weak, and did not want visitors. He was …

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Community News & Updates March 2019

CURRENT STUDENTS After some winter residency prepping growing pains (read trauma), and mixed-genre "Extreme Workshop" epiphany, Nina B. Lichtenstein (Creative Nonfiction) wrote about the importance of reading outside our genre instead of doing her qualitative residency response. Happily for her, Brevity picked it up for their blog on the craft of writing. FACULTY The film version …

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Community News & Updates April 2018

ANNOUNCEMENTS On April 13th from 6:00-8:00 p.m., Quiet City Books in Lewiston, Maine, will host "Between Fear and Hope: Readings from Local Writers." Among the readers are Stonecoast alum Josh Gauthier (Popular Fiction, S’17), and graduating students Meredith MacEachern (Popular Fiction) and Anthony Marvullo (Creative Nonfiction). The event is free and open to the public. See …

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AWP 2018

Written by Suzanne Strempek Shea Stonecoast was a boulder of a presence at the recent annual conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs. Held at the Tampa Convention Center March 8 to 11, the event was attended by 12,000, and featured 2,000 presenters, and 550 readings, panels and lecture. The largest literary conference …

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Community News & Updates March 2018

ANNOUNCEMENTS Stonecoast administrators, alums, faculty, and students will be attending the upcoming Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Annual Conference & Bookfair in Tampa, FL, which takes place March 7-10, 2018. For more information about the AWP conference, please visit their website, and to view the list of panels, readings, signing, and gatherings that …

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