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Author Talks in Kennebunkport

RICHARD RUSSO AND TOM PERROTTA @ VINEGAR HILL – OCTOBER 16 @ 5 PM

RICHARD RUSSO AND TOM PERROTTA

 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2024

Vinegar Hill Music Theater, 53 Old Post Road, Arundel

Reserved seat admission ticket is $50-$60 

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A (cash bar) cocktail hour and book sales will start at 5 PM followed by an intimate conversation with award-winning authors at 6:30 pm. 

Graves Library is thrilled to welcome acclaimed author Richard Russo back to the Vinegar Hill stage. He will be joined by bestselling author Tom Perrotta for an evening of lively conversation on October 16 at 5:00 PM. Reserved seating tickets are on sale now at vinhillmusic.com for $50-$60.

Join us for food and drinks before the show in the outdoor garden prior to the event.

The night’s food truck is Vintage Dogs – featuring a spread of specialty hot dogs (including vegan ones!), sandwiches, and fries!

Print: A Bookstore will be selling a variety of the authors’ works during the first hour of the event.

Book signing with authors following the event.

Tom Perrotta is the bestselling author of ten works of fiction, including “Election” and “Little Children”, both of which were made into Oscar-nominated films, and “The Leftovers” and “Mrs. Fletcher”, which were adapted into critically acclaimed HBO series. His other books include “Bad Haircut”, “The Wishbones”, “Joe College”, “The Abstinence Teacher”, “Nine Inches”, and his newest, “Tracy Flick Can’t Win”. Perrotta lives outside Boston.

Richard Russo is the author of ten acclaimed novels, including “Everybody’s Fool” and “That Old Cape Magic”; two collections of stories; and the memoir “Elsewhere”. In 2002, he received the Pulitzer Prize for “Empire Falls”, which, like “Nobody’s Fool”, was adapted into a multiple-award-winning miniseries; in 2017, he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. His novel, “Somebody’s Fool” was released in July 2023.

Graves Memorial Library thanks Vinegar Hill Music Theatre for their continued generosity in sponsoring this event.

Vinegar Hill Music Theatre is located at: 53 Old Post Road, Arundel, Maine 04046, Tel: 207-985-5552.  The proceeds of all tickets sold benefit the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library.

PURCHASE TICKETS

AUTHOR VISIT WITH ALBERT WAITT – THURSDAY, MAY 23 @ 6:00 PM

MAINE AUTHOR ALBERT WAITT – MAY 23 AT 6:00 PM

Local Author and friend to Graves Library Albert Waitt will be here on Thursday, May 23 at 6:00 pm to read from the second book in the LT Nichols Mystery Series.  Newly published Flood Tide is an incredible work of fiction about what happens when a body washes up on the shore of a harbor island and what LT Nichols, Maine’s Chief of Police will do about it!

 

 

Mr. Waitt will bring copies of the book to sell and sign after his reading. 

 

The Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library is at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport. For further information, please call 967-2778 or visit our website at www.graveslibrary.org.

 

AN EVENING WITH AMERICAN AUTHOR, JOURNALIST, AND PROFESSOR PAUL HENDRICKSON – JUNE 20 @ 5:00 PM

Author Paul Hendrickson

We are thrilled to welcome celebrated author Paul Hendrickson to our 13th annual Author Event on June 20 at 5:00 PM at the historic Kennebunk River Club Casino, 116 Ocean Avenue in Kennebunkport. Purchase tickets online at Eventbrite.

Paul Hendrickson is an American author, journalist, and professor. His eighth book, Fighting the Night, will be published on May 7, 2024. It is an account of his father flying Black Widow night fighters on Iwo Jima in the last part of World War II. The book will come out on the twenty-first anniversary of his father’s death.

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He is the author of the 2011 New York Times best seller and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost. For the 2004 book Bound for Glory: America in Color 1939-43, Hendrickson wrote the introduction and accompanying text. In 2003, he won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Sons of Mississippi: A Story of Race and Its Legacy. His 1996 work about Vietnam, The Living and the Dead: Robert McNamara and Five Lives of a Lost War, was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is the recipient of writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Lyndhurst Foundation, and the Alicia Patterson Foundation. Before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, Hendrickson was a staff feature writer at the Washington Post from 1977 to 2001.

Hendrickson was born in California but grew up in the Midwest and in a Catholic seminary in the Deep South, where he studied for seven years for the missionary priesthood. This became the subject of his first book, published in 1983: Seminary: A Search. He is also the author of Looking for the Light: The Hidden Life and Art of Marion Post Wolcott, a finalist for the 1992 National Book Critics Circle Award.

In 2009, Hendrickson was a joint visiting professor of documentary practice at Duke University and of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  Hendrickson has degrees in English from St. Louis University and Pennsylvania State University. He is married and has two grown sons and lives with his wife, Cecilia, outside Philadelphia.

“We are honored to have Mr. Hendrickson join us this year,” said Graves Library Executive Director Mary-Lou Boucouvalas. “We are also extremely grateful for the wonderful community support provided by our event sponsors. One hundred percent of the funds raised will support the ongoing operations of the Library.”

This special fundraiser is being underwritten by Spinnaker Trust, along with the Kennebunk River Club, Lupine Books,  Allyn and Norma Lamb, Mike and Denise Iafolla, Robert and Marjie Dennis, Mutasia, Billy and Rosemary Shore, John and Mary Mills, Tom and Sarah Vander Schaaff, Kitchen Chicks Catering, the Colony Hotel, Anne and Ken Raynor, Edison Press, Hurlbutt Designs, Schooner Eleanor, SoPo Wine Company, Maine & Vine, and the Wine House on Main.

The ticket price of $75 includes an autographed copy of Fighting the Night. Tickets can be purchased at Graves Library and online through Eventbrite. Call (207) 967-2778 or visit our website at www.graveslibrary.org for more information. Seating is limited.

PROGRAM FOR THE EVENING

5:00 PM – 5:45 PM                       DOORS OPEN PROMPTLY AT 5:00 PM.   RECEPTION WITH WINE AND LIGHT REFRESHMENT

5:50 PM – 6:00 PM                       WELCOME and THANK YOU TO SPONSORS

6:00 PM – 6:10 PM                       ANNOUNCEMENT OF JOYCE BUTLER STUDENT HISTORY AWARD

6:10 PM – 6:15 PM                       INTRODUCTION OF PAUL HENDRICKSON

6:15 PM – 7:00 PM                       INTERVIEW WITH PAUL HENDRICKSON

7:00 PM – 7:30 PM                       BOOK SIGNING

STARS FROM CORONA KITCHEN – LISA LUCAS and DEBRIANNA MANSINI – APRIL 21 @ 2:00 PM

A POP-UP VISIT WITH TELEVISION CELEBRITIES LISA LUCAS AND DEBRIANNA MANSINI

The Stars of Corona Kitchen (Lisa Lucas and Debrianna Mansini) will be here at Graves Library on Sunday, April 21 @ 2:00 PM.  These ladies know that good food and good stories are like a warm, healing hug.  Add seasoning with a dash of hilarious personal anecdotes, and the troubles of the day seem to fade.

Outspoken television pros Lisa Lucas and Debrianna Mansini shared their kitchens, hearts, anxieties, and good humor as they broadcast their culinary adventures during the pandemic lockdown and the dark days that followed.  In the process, they connected with a hungry audience that spans the globe.  In That Time We Ate Our Feelings : 150 Recipes for Comfort Food from the Heart, Lisa and Debrianna share their most beloved dishes along with never-before-shared creations and top-voted dishes by members of the Corona Kitchen community.  The result is a colorful and cathartic read with warming, judgment-free mouthwatering recipes that prove a good meal heals all.

This quirky, hands-on cookbook features original recipes for all means of the day, plus snacks, side dishes, cocktails and mocktails, and options for vegans, vegetarians, gluten-free, and dairy-free diets.  It is guaranteed to meet you where you are, no matter if you are stressed, sad, thriving, or nostalgic.  All you have to bring to the table is yourself!

Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing after the event. The Graves Library Snack Team will provide light refreshments. Please call the Library for more information on this event (207-967-2778).  Parking is available along Maine Street, the North Street Fire Station Parking Lot, and Consolidated School (Route 9).

The Graves Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine. Please enter through the white door in the Parking Lot.

MAINE AUTHOR BRUCE ROBERT COFFIN – JUNE 15 @ 2:00 PM

THE PATSY BRAY MAHONEY LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS

Maine Author/Mystery Writer Bruce Robert Coffin will be here on Saturday, June 15 at 2:00 pm to read from his latest novel, The Cardinal’s Curse.  This is the second book in the Turner and Mosley Series.

An enigmatic invitation lures tech genius Avery Turner and thrill-seeker Carter Mosley away from their recent groundbreaking discovery of the General’s Gold, offering them a chance to join an expedition on the cutting edge of science. Drawn into the heart of Antarctica, they pursue a legendary shipwreck that is fabled to house the long-lost crown jewels of Norway. As they plunge into the quest, chilling tales of centuries-old curses and an unsolved murder emerge, hinting at connections more profound and perilous than they ever imagined.  With a stolen treasure worth millions at stake and the fate of the scientific expedition in question, Carter must complete the most dangerous dive of his life in the harshest conditions on the planet. As suspicious sabotage cripples their equipment and unforeseen dangers intensify, the duo depend on Avery’s innovative technology and their unwavering trust in each other. But amidst the ice, their gravest challenge might become determining friend from foe.

Bruce Robert Coffin is the award-winning author of the Detective Byron Mysteries. Former detective sergeant with more than twenty-seven years in law enforcement, he is the winner of Killer Nashville’s Silver Falchion Awards for Best Procedural, and Best Investigator, and the Maine Literary Award for Best Crime Fiction Novel. Bruce was also a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Contemporary Novel. His short fiction appears in a number of anthologies, including Best American Mystery Stories 2016. [Seven Rivers Publishing]

 

Copies of the books will also be available for sale and signing after the event.  Light refreshments will be provided by the Graves Library Snack Team.  Please call the Library for more information on this event and the rest of the series (967-2778).

Parking is available along Maine Street, the North Street Fire Station Parking Lot, and Consolidated School (Route 9).  The Graves Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine.  Please enter through the white door in the Parking Lot.

 

CARL and DAVID LITTLE – THE ART OF PENOBSCOT BAY – MAY 18 @ 2:00 PM

THE PATSY BRAY MAHONEY LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS

We are thrilled to welcome back Carl Little and David Little to the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library on Saturday, May 18 at 2:00 pm.  Their latest book published by Yarmouth-based Islandport Press reflects a true and beautiful representation of Maine’s Penobscot area.

For Art of Penobscot Bay, brothers David and Carl Little, well-known stewards of Maine art, have selected art and artists, from history and today, that celebrate the myriad of inlets, islands, coves, and peninsulas—the “nooks and corners” of the region. Above all, they sought out art infused with a remarkable representation of place by more than 120 artists who have embraced the area and its people. Art of Penobscot Bay includes artists from the 19th century through the 21st century, including Fitz Henry Lane, Waldo Peirce, Edward Hopper, William Zorach, John Marin, Emily Muir, Greta Van Campen, Alex Katz, Eric Hopkins, and Amy Peters Wood. Combined with text by the Little brothers, the art takes readers on a wondrous visual journey around, across, and through a breathtaking bay.

Born in New York City, Carl Little holds degrees from Dartmouth, Middlebury, and Columbia. Little is the author of more than 30 art books, including The Watercolors of John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper’s New England, and Paintings of Maine. His book Eric Hopkins: Above and Beyond won the first John Cole Prize from the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance in 2012. Little writes for Art New England, Hyperallergic, Maine Boats, Homes & Harbors, The Working Waterfront, Island Journal, and Ornament. In 2021 the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation honored Little with a Lifetime Achievement Award for his art writing. He lives and writes on Mount Desert Island.

 

David Little is the author of Art of Katahdin, named a “Best of New England” book by the Boston Globe in 2013. He is a co-author with his brother Carl of Art of Acadia (2016) and Paintings of Portland (2018). In 2017 he took part in a national symposium at Colby College, “Valuing the Aesthetics of Nature: The Role of the Visual Artist in the American Conservation Movement.” Little holds an M.A. and M.F.A. in painting from the University of Iowa, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1981 and 1982), and has had residencies on Monhegan Island and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He lives with his wife Mikki in Portland. Find more about David at www.davidlittleart.com.

 

Copies of the book will also be available for sale and signing after the event.  Light refreshments will be provided by the Graves Library Snack Team.  Please call the Library for more information on this event and the rest of the series (967-2778).

Parking is available along Maine Street, the North Street Fire Station Parking Lot, and Consolidated School (Route 9).  If the weather is bad, please check your local television stations for updates on our listings or send us an email to:  mlbgraves@gmail.com

We would also like to thank The Kennebunkport Resort Collection for being a sponsor of this event.  Your support of community non-profits is greatly appreciated!

MAINE AUTHOR GIGI GEORGES – MAY 11 @ 2:00 PM

THE PATSY BRAY MAHONEY LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS

We are so excited to invite celebrated author Gigi Georges to the Graves Library on Saturday, May 11 at 2:00 pm.

Ms. Georges turned to narrative non-fiction writing after an extensive career in politics, public service, and academia. A former White House Special Assistant to the President and U.S. Senate State Director, she has taught political science at Boston College, served as a Program Director for the Harvard Kennedy School, and been a Managing Director of The Glover Park Group—a leading national public affairs firm. Born and raised in Brooklyn, she lives with her husband and eleven-year-old daughter in New Hampshire and Downeast Maine.

Downeast honors the lives of five remarkable young women and, through them, the paths of young women across rural America. It shines a light, too often obscured, on the indispensable role contemporary rural women play in their communities.

Copies of the book will also be available for sale and signing after the event. The Graves Library Snack Team will provide light refreshments. Please call the Library for more information on this event and the rest of the series at 967-2778.

Parking is available along Maine Street, the North Street Fire Station Parking Lot, and Consolidated School (Route 9).

 

 

 

 

The Graves Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine. Please enter through the white door in the Parking Lot.

MAINE AUTHOR RONALD JOSEPH – FEBRUARY 24 @ 2:00 PM

THE PATSY BRAY MAHONEY LECTURE SERIES PRESENTS:

Maine Author, Ron Joseph will be here at the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library on Saturday, February 24 @ 2:00 pm to talk about his work as a wildlife biologist and his memoir, Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs, and Hermit Bill.  Ron will present a slide show and talk about his experiences in the field.  Copies of the book will also be available for sale and signing after the event.

 

Ronald Joseph was born in Waterville, Maine, and grew up in neighboring Oakland. He studied ornithology at the University of New Hampshire where he earned a degree in wildlife conservation. He later earned a master’s degree in zoology from Brigham Young University. In 1978, he began a career as a state and federal wildlife biologist, mostly in Maine, but also for a time in New Hampshire and Utah.

In his memoir Bald Eagles, Bear Cubs and Hermit Bill, he recounts his youth in central Maine, the importance of his family’s dairy farm, his adventures in the field, and the characters he met over the course of a career working with wildlife and conservation that spanned more than three decades.

Parking is available along Maine Street, the North Street Fire Station Parking Lot and Consolidated School (Route 9).  If the weather is bad, please check your local television stations for updates on our listings or send us an email to:  mlbgraves@gmail.com

Light refreshments will be provided by the Graves Library Snack Team.  Please call the Library for more information on this event and the rest of the series (967-2778).

The Graves Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, Maine.  Please enter through the white door in the Parking Lot.

JOURNALIST SHANNON MULLEN AND GUEST GOVERNOR JANET MILLS – NOVEMBER 5 – 2:00 PM

We hope you will join us on Sunday, November 5 at  2:00 p.m. for a very special event.  Journalist Shannon Mullen will be here (with a special appearance by Governor Janet Mills) to talk about her book  In Other Words, Leadership:  How a Young Mother’s Weekly Letters to Her Governor Helped Both Women Brave the First Pandemic Year.

 

This trip to the “Vacationland” of Maine — where the state motto is I Lead — offers an inspiring tale of civility and purpose, of doing the right thing and not just surviving, but prevailing.

The first woman to serve as Governor of Maine, Janet Mills, had been in office a year when COVID-19 reached the United States. The recently-widowed 72-year-old wrote in her journal there is “no playbook for a pandemic” as she imposed unprecedented restrictions on her state.

When early support for the governor’s response curdled to rampant opposition, a young mother named Ashirah Knapp sent a letter of support from a remote homestead in the woods of Maine. Ashirah’s handwritten dispatch detailed how the public health emergency was upending her family’s life and livelihood, and she promised to keep writing “every week until we are through this time” to remind the governor how many Mainers supported her despite the disruption.

Ashirah’s letters, with their simple wisdom and striking penmanship, stood out in a flood of correspondence Governor Mills was receiving that ranged in tone from appreciative to furious. They helped keep her grounded as she made wrenching, often unpopular choices.

Shannon A. Mullen weaves from these two women’s letters and the governor’s journal, which were never intended for publication, an intimate and compelling true story that is a celebration of civility and compassion in the face of rancor and of resolve in the face of adversity.

Copies of the book will be for sale.  Light refreshments will be served.  Doors open at 1:30.    Parking available at the Village Fire Station (North Street) and Consolidated School (Route 9).  Please call (207) 967-2778 for more information.

Governor Janet Mills:

Janet Trafton Mills is the 75th Governor of Maine and the first woman elected to that office. She was sworn in for her second consecutive term in January 2023 after winning re-election, having earned more votes than any previous Maine governor. She was also the first governor since 1970 to be elected with a majority of the vote, in her case for both terms. Under her leadership during the global COVID-19 pandemic Maine had one of the highest vaccination rates and lowest death rates in the US, as well as one of the strongest economic recoveries among the states. Governor Mills previously served as Maine’s first female Attorney General and its first woman district attorney, as well as in the state’s House of Representatives. She is step-mother to her late husband’s five daughters and a grandmother of five.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Shannon Mullen:

Shannon A. Mullen is a journalist, author, screenwriter and film producer, playwright and podcast host. She grew up in the White Mountains and Lakes Region of New Hampshire and studied pre-veterinary medicine at UNH after misinterpreting her love of storytelling, inspired by James Herriot’s books, as an inclination toward animal husbandry. She then earned a graduate degree in broadcast journalism at Boston University. Shannon went on to report for national programs on public radio for two decades, including Marketplace, Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Her print journalism has been published by The New Yorker, The Boston Globe and Boston Magazine, among other outlets. She is also developing multiple projects for the screen and stage through her production company Broad Reach.

RICHARD RUSSO AND ANDRE DUBUS III @ VINEGAR HILL – OCTOBER 19 – 5:30 PM

RICHARD RUSSO AND ANDRE DUBUS, III:  IN CONVERSATION

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 19, 2023

Vinegar Hill Music Theater, 53 Old Post Road, Arundel Maine

General admission ticket is $50.00  

PURCHASE TICKETS NOW

 

 

 

A (cash bar) cocktail hour and book sales will start at 5:30 pm followed by an intimate conversation with award-winning authors—and dear friends—Richard Russo and Andre Dubus, III at 6:30 pm. 

Come autumn, Dubus and Russo will have just released brand new novels. Dubus’ Such Kindness, the story of a working-class white man’s terrible fall, has been called “A powerful portrait of recovered dignity” by People magazine. In Somebody’s Fool, Russo returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved bestsellers Nobody’s Fool and Everybody’s Fool.

As always, both novels brim with the two authors’ trademark heartrending observations and—especially in Russo’s case—wry humor. These are two masters in peak form.

Russo and Dubus have read to rapt audiences at Graves Library over the years, but this very special evening marks the first time the longtime friends will be appearing together in Kennebunkport.

Moderating the conversation will be former Graves Library board member Joshua Bodwell, editorial director of Godine and Black Sparrow Press.

This event is being sponsored by our friends at Vinegar Hill Music Theater.

Print : A Bookstore will be selling a variety of the authors’ works during the first hour of the event.  Both Russo and Dubus, III will stay after their talk to personalize any purchases.

 

Richard Russo is the author of ten acclaimed novels, including Everybody’s Fool and That Old Cape Magic; two collections of stories; and the memoir Elsewhere. In 2002 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Empire Falls, which, like Nobody’s Fool, was adapted into a multiple-award-winning miniseries; in 2017, he received France’s Grand Prix de Littérature Américaine. His novel, Somebody’s Fool, was released in July 2023.

Andre Dubus III’s books include the New York Times’ bestsellers House of Sand and Fog, The Garden of Last Days, and his memoir, Townie. His recent novel, Gone So Long, was named to many “Best Books” lists, including The Boston Globe’s “Twenty Best Books of 2018.” In April 2023, Dubus served as editor of Reaching Inside: 50 Acclaimed Authors on 100 Unforgettable Short Stories. His novel, Such Kindness, was released in June 2023. A collection of personal essays, Ghost Dogs: On Killers and Kin, is due in winter 2024.

 

Vinegar Hill Music Theatre is located at: 53 Old Post Road, Arundel, Maine 04046, Tel: 207-985-5552.  The proceeds of all tickets sold benefit the Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library.

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