Join us for the launch of Word 2024 with the annual Word.Art exhibit of visual art that includes or relates to the written word. Featured work is by Kristie Billings, Marechal Brown, Stu Kestenbaum and Susan Webster, Buzz Masters, Claire Millikin, Leslie Moore, Margaret Rizzio, Amy Tingle, Caroline Sulzer, Heidi Daub, and Patricia Wheeler. Spitfire, Millikin, and Billings will read during the opening at 6 pm, joined by Elizabeth Kirshner, one of two winners of the first Word Festival Writing Contest.

Free event

Reach Projects, in collaboration with the Blue Hill Public Library and Word, created a public project this summer called Search Engine. Working with multi-media artist Chris Doyle, residents created art inspired by a late night visit to the darkened library. The result has been transformed into a video that will be shown on the facade of the Cynthia Winnings Gallery. Search Engine was funded in part by a grant from the Onion Foundation.

Free event

Kick off the weekend festivities, meet and mingle with authors and festival-goers, enjoy delicious food from around the Blue Hill peninsula, all while supporting the Word festival.

Ticketed event, purchase here

What do you do when the world has lost its balance and your heroes are gone? Lev Grossman’s bestselling novel, The Bright Sword, is an Arthurian epic for our troubled times, the story of an idealistic young knight who arrives at Camelot ready to serve, only to find that King Arthur is dead and the Round Table is in shambles. With a rag-tag band of lesser knights and misfits, he sets out on a quest to make this ruined world whole again. 

Grossman–author of the best-selling Magicians trilogy, basis for the TV series of the same title–will join Laura Miller, Slate books and culture columnist, to discuss the lasting power of our oldest myths and how to write about hope, heroism, and the dream of a better world.

Free event

Back by popular demand! This workshop will meet Saturday from 9 am to noon, take a one-hour break, then reconvene for song-finishing from 1 to 4 pm. George Emlen and Noel Paul Stookey (best known as “Paul” of the multi-platinum-selling group Peter, Paul & Mary) will offer songwriting techniques in a group setting to aspiring songwriters of all levels and genres. If you only have a melody, we'll help you find a lyric. If you only have a lyric, we'll help you find a melody. Class size is limited, so sign up early.

Pre-registration required

Minquansis Sapiel will read from her book, Little People of the Dawn, and introduce her audience to the homes and food sources that the Little People rely on and that enrich our soil and natural surroundings. Weather permitting, a portion of the presentation will take place outside on the library grounds. Recommended for ages 5 to 10. Cosponsored by Blue Hill Public Library.

Free event

Life gets in the way of our art, all the time. A Mad Tea is a scheduled opportunity to work on your art and collaborate with other artists. Hosted by novelist, dancer, and songwriter MZ and modeled after European art salons, a Mad Tea is a creative workshop for artists to devote a couple of hours to their art, in whatever state it is in. You do not need to consider yourself an artist to join.  

Free event

It is difficult to talk about grief, and it can even be more difficult to write through grief. Participants, led by poet Maya Williams, will examine how grief is related to mental health, and how poems might be written and revised during hard times. Limited enrollment

Pre-registration required

Meeting individually with writers for 15 minute sessions, literary agent Ann Rittenberg will listen to their “pitch,” or description of their book, and work with them to refine it. In so doing, she’ll help each writer find ways to improve the book. Participants will be given some light reading in preparation for their session. Limited enrollment, so sign up early.

Pre-registration required

Artists of all ages are invited to join festival favorite Mia Bogyo to explore how we can use repurposed book pages and mixed media drawing, collage, and fiber techniques to create decorative, poetic verses.

Free event

What happens when we allow the natural world to tell its own story, the place itself to speak? Led by Samaa Abdurraqib and Katherine Hagopian Berry, this workshop encourages participants to explore writing with (not just about) nature.  Participants will be led through a series of interactive prompts that allow them to explore different natural guises. Limited enrollment

Pre-registration required

We know from the poets that memory is often attached to singular artifacts, emblems, or events imbued with significant feeling and meaning and self-knowledge. How can we prompt these recollections, and compose the song lines that cohere around them? Led by Penobscot Press columnist Todd R. Nelson, participants will consider the inspiring sounds, objects, and places we’ve stored away, the texts and techniques, the words and phrases, for making them vivid and enduring. Limited enrollment

Pre-registration required

Three celebrated middle-grade writers–Kate Albus, Megan E. Freeman, and Nancy Tandon–will explore the process of creative reinvention, describing their experiences of becoming traditionally published authors after many successful years in other careers. They will share what inspired their creative dreams and discuss some of the obstacles and opportunities they experienced along the path to publication.

Free event

Join Anna from Healthy Peninsula’s Magic Food Bus to prepare a big pot of soup and celebrate the end of harvest season. Bring something for the pot or to go with the meal if you like! We’ll enjoy a story on the lawn with Claire of Blue Hill Public Library and share a bowl of soup together.

Free event

The power of community supporting the art of poetry is ever present at Word’s annual POETRY ALIVE event. It’s an ideal opportunity to spend time with a variety of poetic voices. Please join us on Saturday, October 25, 2024 at 4:00 p.m. when we welcome the following poets to our stage: Kathleen Ellis, UMO Honors teacher and coordinator of Poets/Speak!; Dave Morrison, musician and author of 17 poetry collections; and Maya Williams former Poet Laureate of Portland, this year’s Ashley Bryant Fellow, and slam poet finalist. 

Free event

Enjoy a casual chowder supper—fish chowder, corn chowder, Tinder Hearth bread, salad, and sweets—between the Poets Aloud reading and the conversation with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Charles Rolsky.

Ticketed event, purchase here

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do while facing an existential crisis is to imagine life on the other side. Marine biologist, policy advisor, and writer Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is co-founder of Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities, and co-creator of the podcast “How to Save a Planet.” Her new book, What if We Get It Right?, asks: What would the future look like if we forged ahead with all the solutions to actually address the climate crisis? Her answer is a collection of provocative and joyous maps to an inspiring landscape of possible climate futures. Dr. Johnson will be in conversation with Dr. Charles Rolsky, executive director of the Shaw Institute in Blue Hill.

Free event

How do novice creators learn the skills they need to master their craft and navigate the business? They have to show up. Led by author Megan E. Freeman, this workshop will demonstrate how the practice of showing up can advance the professional trajectory of any ambitious creator. Participants will engage in real-time SMART goal-setting and action-planning, and will leave with actionable strategies that can be employed immediately. Limited enrollment

Pre-registration required

Our brains think – and we read -- in mental images rather than in abstractions. Images function on two levels at once: as real sensory things in the world, and as paths into a story’s, and your reader’s, emotional core. Led by Kate Moses, this workshop will illuminate how images work and how to use them in your own writing, whatever your genre. Limited enrollment

Pre-registration required

David Nicholson's book, The Garretts of Columbia, is the product of years of research in archives and online, as well as a remarkable family story. It begins with the enslaved ancestor who bought freedom for himself, his wife and two of his children, and leads to Papa, a college professor and editor of three newspapers, and Mama, a supervisor of rural Black schools. Nicholson will talk with Jerry Edwards, A.K.A GeniusBlack, host of the podcast “Maine’s Black Future,” about the challenges and rewards of preserving the history of ordinary, extraordinary people in a world that too often chooses to forget.

Free event

Enjoy cider and cookies before the festival finale.

By donation

Join Portland’s Emily Zack (MZ) and her dance company, Vivid Motion, in a lyrical interpretation of her debut novel, The Moorings of Mackerel Sky, the story of a small Maine fishing town haunted by the legend a mermaid and the captain who loved her.

Free event