Sara Corbett & Mike Paterniti

Two journalists in one Portland household—and both write for the New York Times Magazine. Mike Paterniti and Sara Corbett are often away, however, laying the groundwork for their articles and books. Sometimes alone, as when Paterniti was Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain (Dell, 2000). Sometimes together, as when Corbett recounts her experience of learning Spanish in Spain, in “Learning the Lingua Franca” in Travel and Leisure, May, 2004. Paterniti has won National Magazine Awards for features and profiles; Corbett’s New York Times essay “The Permanent Scars of Iraq” has been widely discussed.

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

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Stonecoast Flash Readings

One of the highlights of each 10-day residency in the Stonecoast MFA program is the “flash reading” by faculty members. Each writer gets three minutes in which to share his or her work before introducing the next writer in the queue.

Please leave your comments on any (or all!) of the readers here.

The Place of Poetry

This program is the first in a series we'll be posting from the Stonecoast MFA program's winter 2008 residency in Freeport, Maine. In this faculty presentation, Maine poets Annie Finch and Baron Wormser led students and fellow Stonecoast faculty members in a wide-ranging conversation about the place of poetry. They based their discussion on two books: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde and The Song of the Earth by Jonathan Bate.

Join the conversation by leaving a comment here.

Sue Miller

Sue Miller is the best-selling author of nine works of fiction, including The Good Mother and While I Was Gone, and the nonfiction book The Story of My Father. Her new book, The Senator's Wife, revolves around the marriages of two women—a young mother and the wife of a promiscuous politician—who live side by side in a New England townhouse. Miller lives in Boston. In this recording, she is introduced by Portland novelist Monica Wood.

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

Jaed Coffin

Six years ago, at the age of twenty-one, Jaed Muncharoen Coffin left New England’s privileged Middlebury College to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in his mother’s native village of Panomsarakram—thus fulfilling a familial obligation. Part armchair travel, part coming-of-age story, his debut book A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants (Da Capo Press, 2007) chronicles his time at the temple. Jaed Coffin holds a B.A. in philosophy from Middlebury College and an M.F.A. from the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Writing Program. A boxer, sea-kayaker, and lobster fisherman, he lives in Brunswick, Maine. In this recording, he is introduced by Shonna Milliken Humphrey, Executive Director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.

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

Rita Charon

Rita Charon, M.D., Ph.D., is Professor of Clinical Medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University and the leader of the emerging field of Narrative Medicine. (Click here for a full bio.) As Director and Founder of Columbia’s Program in Narrative Medicine, she guides both aspiring and practicing health care professionals in writing about their experiences from both their own points of view and the imagined perspectives of their patients. In this talk, “Listening for the Self-Telling Body,” she speaks about how these narratives, which she calls parallel charts, both heighten the attention of the caregiver, and create an affiliation between the patient and the caregiver. Dr. Charon is introduced by Lizz Sinclair.

This talk was part of the Literature & Medicine program’s national conference, Caring for the Caregiver: Perspectives on Literature and Medicine, held on November 9 & 10, 2007 in Manchester, NH.

Veneta Masson

A former public health nurse with many years’ experience, Veneta Masson, R.N., M.A., is also the author of three books. Though no longer in practice, Veneta continues to explore healing art. The title of her newest collection, Clinician’s Guide to the Soul, was also the title of her conference workshop. “As a family nurse practitioner, I relied on countless ‘clinician’s guides,’ concise, up-to-the-minute print or online references to specific topics like antibiotics, common skin conditions or pediatric lab values. But, a guide to the soul! What is the soul? And why, in this golden age of scientific exploration and achievement, do so many of us insist on its relevance to health and health care?”

This workshop was part of the Literature & Medicine program’s national conference, Caring for the Caregiver: Perspectives on Literature and Medicine, held on November 9 & 10, 2007, in Manchester, NH. Please leave your comments—or personal perspective, if you were there—on Veneta's workshop here.