BIOGRAPHIES OF LONGFELLOW DAYS 2014 PARTICIPANTS

Poets Laureate Event (2/1/14)

Angus King is a United States Senator for Maine. He graduated from and the University of Virginia Law School, beginning his career as a staff attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance in Skowhegan. In the early 1970s, he served as chief counsel to U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Alcoholism and Narcotics in the office of former Maine Senator William Hathaway, and then he returned to Maine to practice with Smith, Loyd and King in Brunswick. In 1983, he was appointed Vice President of Swift River/Hafslund Company, an alternative energy development. Six years later, he founded Northeast Energy Management, Inc., a developer of large-scale energy conservation initiatives at commercial and industrial facilities in Maine. In 1994, Senator King was elected Maine's 71st Governor. During his two terms in the Blaine House, he focused on economic development and job creation, and also achieved significant reforms in education, mental health services, land conservation, environmental protection, and the delivery of state services. He was re-elected in 1998 by one of the largest margins in Maine’s history.

Wesley McNair has authored nine collections of poetry, most recently, Lovers of the Lost: New and Selected Poems (David R. Godine, 2010). A native who has lived for many years in Mercer, Maine, McNair earned his undergraduate degree from Keene State College and two advanced degrees from . In addition to his poetry, he has published three books of prose, including a memoir, The Words I Chose, and several anthologies of Maine writing. His awards include grants from the Guggenheim and Fulbright foundations, two Rockefeller Fellowships, two grants in creative writing from the National Endowment for the Arts, and an Emmy Award. He has twice been invited to read his poetry by the Library of Congress and was selected in 2006 for a United States Artists Fellowship for lifetime achievement in poetry. McNair is professor emeritus and writer in residence at the University of Maine at Farmington. In March 2011 he was appointed of Maine.

Betsy Sholl served as Maine’s Poet Laureate from 2006 to 2011. She is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently, Rough Cradle (Alice James Books, 2009). Her poetry has been published in numerous journals and magazines including Orion Magazine, Field, Triquarterly, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Ploughshares, and Beloit Poetry Journal. She has been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission. Originally from New Jersey, she moved to Maine in 1983. She has an MFA in poetry writing from Vermont College as well as an M.A. from the University of Rochester and a BA in English Literature from Bucknell University. Sholl has been a visiting poet at the University of Pittsburgh and at Bucknell University and was one of the seven founding members of Alice James Books. She teaches at the University of Southern Maine and in the low-residency MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.

Baron Wormser grew up in Baltimore, attended Johns Hopkins University, and did graduate studies at the University of California, Irvine and the University of Maine. For twenty-five years he worked as a librarian for SAD 59 in Madison, Maine, and he taught poetry writing at the University of Maine at Farmington. His memoir The Road Washes Out in Spring details the years he lived with his family in an off-the-grid house on forty-eight acres in Mercer, Maine. He was appointed Poet Laureate of Maine by Governor Angus King in 2000, and served in that capacity for six years. Wormser read his poem “Building a House in the Maine Woods, 1971” at Governor Baldacci’s 2003 inauguration. He has received the Frederick Bock Prize from Poetry, the Kathryn A. Morton Prize, and fellowships from Bread Loaf, the National Endowment for the Arts and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. He teaches in the Fairfield University MFA program and is Director of Educational Outreach for the Frost Place in Franconia, New Hampshire. - more - LONGFELLOW DAYS bios / page 2

Other Participants

Ruth Bookey and her family fled to the United States from Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. For many years she has been involved in music as a soloist and choral singer. She started writing poetry a few years ago, inspired by her poet husband and the poetry groups that met at their home. With Ted she translated the German poet Erich Kastner. Ruth is also a painter who studied art at the University of Maine in Orono and at the Rhode Island School of Design. She teaches "Hands On Art for Beginners" at Senior College at the University of Maine in Augusta, and her art has graced several Moon Pie Press book covers. (2/11 and 2/20 events)

Ted Bookey moved to Maine in 1980 from New York, where he taught English in public schools and at Long Island University. He teaches in the Senior Education program at the University of Maine in Augusta, and is the author of five books of poems, including Mixty Motions, a book of translations from the German of Erich Kastner (in collaboration with his wife Ruth), Language As A Second Language, Lostalgia, and A W/Hole in One. Bookey's poetry, criticism and reviews appear in many journals and anthologies. His plays have been produced in Maine and off Broadway in New York City. (2/11 and 2/20 events)

Marcia F. Brown has an MFA in poetry from USM's Stonecoast writing program, and a B.A. from Smith College. She is the author of three books: What on Earth (Moon Pie Press, 2010); Home to Roost: Paintings and Poems of Belfast Maine, a 2007 collaboration with artist Archie Barnes; and The Way Women Walk, the winning entry in the 2005 Sheltering Pines Press chapbook. She is a member of Three Genres in the Rain, which gives benefit readings in libraries and schools; and she co-hosts a monthly reading series, “Local Writers at The Local Buzz,” in Cape Elizabeth. Her poems have appeared in The Café Review, Poet Lore, Wolf Moon Journal, and Off the Coast, been read by Garrison Keillor on NPR’s “The Writer’s Almanac,” and were nominated for Pushcart Prizes in 2005 and 2006. (2/2 event)

Peter M. Coviello is Professor of English at Bowdoin College, where he has taught since 1998. He specializes in nineteenth-century American literature and queer studies, and has served as Chair of the departments of English, Africana Studies, and Gay and Lesbian Studies. He is the editor of Walt Whitman’s Memoranda During the War; Intimacy in America: Dreams of Affiliation in Antebellum Literature; and Tomorrow’s Parties: Sex and the Untimely in Nineteenth-Century America. Since 2011 he has been a member of the editorial board at American Literature. His work has appeared in PMLA, ELH, Raritan, American Literature, GLQ, and MLQ as well as in venues like Frieze and The Believer. (2/19 event)

Steve Cowperthwaite is a teacher with the reputation of being a storyteller. A native Mainer, he lives a “somewhat Thoreauvian life” by a beautiful lake in the woods, although he is happiest when he is creative rather than meditative. He built his own house, lots of small buildings, round woodpiles, fixed boats and published some history. He participates in Senior College at UMA and is a regular In Ted Bookey's poetry class. Memories of his childhood on a hardscrabble farm are a great source for his poetry, which is full of humor, imagery, and clear-eyes understanding of human nature. (2/2 event)

Carolyn Gelland grew up in Europe and in New York City, where she worked as a translator and directed a small art gallery. Her poems have been widely published in literary journals. She and her husband, poet Kenneth Frost, moved to rural Maine to focus on writing poems. Her second collection, Dream-Shuttle, was published in September, 2013. Her first book, Four-Alarm House, was published in February, 2012.

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LONGFELLOW DAYS bios / page 3 over Maine and beyond. Her poems are widely published in literary journals, including The Bitter Oleander, Sou'wester, Iodine Poetry Journal, The Greensboro Review, and RiverSedge. Her first book, Four- Alarm House, was published in 2012; her newest collection is Dream-Shuttle. (2/16 event)

Steve Gibbon has an MFA in Fiction and Poetry from Vermont College of Fine Arts. His work has featured in various publications, including Harpur Palate, Pank Magazine, Armchair/Shotgun and Words and Images, where he won the 2008 Excellence in Expression Award. He was recently nominated for the Pushcart Prize for his short story, “An Animal Under the Ground." (2/9 event)

Terry Grasse is a poet and visual artist who currently lives in Lisbon Falls. A veteran of the Vietnam War, with many works inspired by wartime experiences, Grasse has read frequently at such venues as the Freeport Community Library, Rockland Public Library, Brunswick’s Peace Fair, Lewiston’s Poetry and Peace Potluck, Camden Opera House, Space Gallery, and Gulf of Maine Books. Grasse is also a noted sculptor whose work has been exhibited at many venues throughout the state. (2/16 event)

Douglas M. Protsik is a versatile musician, equally skilled on piano, fiddle, and accordion. He is director of Maine Fiddle Camp, founder of the Maine Traditional Music Association, and a member of Old Grey Goose, a trio that specializes in old-time country dance music of Maine and the Maritimes. Among other venues, he has demonstrated his fiddling prowess on American Public Radio’s Prairie Home Companion. A talented accompanist for silent films, he has been a studio pianist for four restored film scores: The Man from Texas (1915), Eyes of the Mummy (1918), The Golem (1920), and Easy Virtue (1928). (2/15 event)

David Sloan, a graduate of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Poetry Program, teaches at Merriconeag in New Gloucester, Maine’s only Waldorf high school. He is the author of two books on teaching. His debut poetry collection –The Irresistible In-Between – was published by Deerbrook Editions in 2013. His poetry has appeared in The Broome Review, The Café Review, Innisfree, The Naugatuck River Review, Poetry Quarterly and Passager, among others. He received the 2012 Betsy Sholl and Maine Literary awards, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He is currently enjoying life's latest delight— grandfatherhood! (2/2 event)

Pam Burr Smith has published short stories, feature articles, essays and poetry in many journals, including Coyet's Journal, The Cafe Review, Slow Dancer, Georgia Review, Poetry Motel, Kansas Quarterly, Kennebec, Animus and Air Fish. Her poetry collection Heaven Jumping Woman was published by Moon Pie Press in 2011, and her work is included in Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry (2013), an anthology of poems compiled from Maine Poet Laureate Wesley McNair’s weekly newspaper column. Smith lives in Brunswick, Maine, where she works as a psychotherapist. (2/9 event)

Amy Spens is a junior at Bowdoin College. Although she was raised in the shadow of the Pacific Northwest rainforest, she has come to love the wild independence of Maine. If her poetry features exquisite details, it is not surprising. The biology student spent last summer exploring the microbial jungle found on computer mice, looking at the impact of human practices on microbial transmission between inanimate surfaces and the environment. She also held a part-time job at Higmo's Sawmill in Bath. Spens is weighing possible career paths as a field biologist, archaeologist, or nurse. (2/16 event)

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LONGFELLOW DAYS bios / page 4

George V. Van Deventer, born in Newark, New Jersey, has worked as a house painter, warehouse man, truck driver, school bus driver, and dairy farmer, and he served with the Signal Corp in the US Army. For eight years he was Executive Director of the Live Poets Society of Maine, working extensively in the public school system developing workshops in poetry for elementary school children, and he is currently editor of its journal, Off the Coast. His poems have been published in such places, as Aurora, The Christian Century, Kennebec Portfolio, Puckerbrush Review, Saranac Review, and The Woods Runner, and he has three published chapbooks. (2/9 event)

Tricia Welsch is Associate Professor of Film Studies on the Marvin H. Green, Jr., Fund and former chair of the film studies program at Bowdoin College. She teaches on a range of subjects, including the history of cinema, German Expressionism, American film, and semester-long studies of Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. She received her B.A. from Fordham University and M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Welsch’s work has appeared in Cinema Journal, the Journal of Popular Film and Television, Film Quarterly, Film Criticism, the Journal of Film and Video, the Quarterly Review of Film and Video, Griffithiana, and Genre, and her book Gloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up (University Press of Mississippi) was published in 2013. (2/15 event)