Voici the Valley

The St. John Valley is found at the top of the state of Maine with the neighboring province of New Brunswick. Fondly called “The Valley,” this international region is home to around 55,000 people, mostly of French heritage. The Voici the Valley Cultureway was created by Sheila Jans, Don Cyr, and Daniel Picard of CultureWorth to celebrate the places and culture of the Valley. Visitors can enhance their experience (and residents can deepen their understanding) of the region with the Voici the Valley Audio Story and Guide, available for $15.

As you listen to the excerpts from Voici the Valley, you can add your comments here. Please also leave recollections or impressions of the St. John Valley, if you have lived there or visited.

Judy Schaefer

Judy Schaefer, R.N.C., M.A., is a nationally recognized author, editor, lecturer, teacher, and advocate for patients as well as nurses. Her workshop at the Literature & Medicine program’s national conference, Caring for the Caregiver (held on November 9 & 10, 2007 in Manchester, NH) was called “The Courage to Create: Finding Your Voice Through Writing.” If you have pen and paper handy while you listen, and pause the recording when Judy says to start writing, you can actually take part in the workshop yourself. Afterwards, you can leave your comments or share your writing here.

Rafael Campo

Rafael Campo, M.D., M.F.A., is a national award winning poet who is also a faculty member and practitioner of general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. His newest collection of poetry, The Enemy, was published in April 2007. He is a recipient of the Annual Achievement Award from the National Hispanic Academy of Arts and Sciences, among many other awards. Campo lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Campo was a special guest at the Literature & Medicine program’s national conference, Caring for the Caregiver, held on November 9 & 10, 2007 in Manchester, NH. On the podcast, you will hear both his keynote presentation (introduced by Veneta Masson) and his workshop, “Fact” vs. “Truth” in Narratives of Illness. Please leave your comments on both recordings here.

Christina Baker Kline

Christina Baker Kline is a novelist, nonfiction writer, and editor. Her novels include Sweet Water and Desire Lines. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Yale Review, Southern Living, Ms., Parents, and Family Life. Currently writer-in-residence at Fordham University, Kline lives in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband, three boys, and their dog, Lucy. She spends summers with extended family on Mount Desert Island. Her newest novel is The Way Life Should Be.

This reading was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, sponsored by Martin’s Point Health Care.

Richard Ford

Born in Mississippi, educated in Michigan and California, a sometime resident of Montana and New Orleans, his Pulitzer Prize-winning Independence Day set in New Jersey, Richard Ford now lives in Maine. And he writes about it: “Charity,” in Contemporary Maine Fiction (Down East Books, 2005), for example, is about people from away who see the possibilities of Maine in very different ways. The considerable debate about whether Ford is a “Southern” or “ex-Southern” writer now has a new dimension, “Maine writer.”

This interview with Roorbach by Charlotte Albright was included on the Council’s 30th Anniversary CD, “Maine Writers Speak.”

Taxing Maine

Through different historical characters, humor, little known facts, and thought-provoking stories, Taxing Maine explores what taxes mean for Maine communities, the state government, the Maine landscape, and Mainers’ wallets. The performance, featuring David Greenham and Dennis A. Price from the Theater at Monmouth, encourages us to consider how history and a range of opinions and beliefs about taxes have influenced our current taxation system. Thanks to Jon James of TheVoiceGuy.net for making this recording.

We welcome your comments!

Jennifer Gilmore

Spanning the first half of the twentieth century, Jennifer Gilmore's Golden Country tells the intertwining stories of three immigrants seeking their fortunes. Gilmore’s reinvention of the Jewish American novel, captures the exuberance of the American dream while exposing its underbelly—disillusionment, greed, and the disaffection bred by success. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly. Gilmore's work has appeared in magazines, journals, and anthologies, including Alaska Quarterly Review, Allure, BookForum, CutBank, Nerve, Salon, and The Stranger. She works in publishing and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

This reading was part of the Portland Public Library’s Brown Bag Lecture Series, sponsored by Martin’s Point Health Care.

Thank you for listening. Please leave your thoughts and questions in a comment on this blog post.