Award winning author Deborah Freedman to speak at the Friday Local Author Series

Friday, April 4th 

Noon – 1:00pm  Meeting Room #5

Portland, Maine - Deborah Freedman will speak on Friday, April 4th at noon at the Friday Local Author Series.  The talk will be held in Meeting Room #5.  The Quiet Triumph of the Heart series has gained recognition for The Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt Stories from Maine by the New England Book Festival, receiving an Honorable Mention Award.  The other books in the series are:  Moments from Portland, Maine and The Sky is Full of Stars.  The Air is Full of Wishes. (a fairy tale)

How do we know we are listening to our heart?  Each book is a different format depicting how the heart has prevailed.

Come listen to all the different ways love can enter our life.  Love is not a thought.  Come listen to stories that expand its definition.

Deborah is the co-founder of MOOSE (Maine Organization Of Storytelling Enthusiasts)  meeting monthly since 2001.  Now at the Portland Public Library the 2nd Wed. of the month.

She creates fairy tales for others based on their life story and performs it at theier special occasion and gives workshops on her process.   www.storyspell.com

Award Winning Author, Lesléa Newman, visits Peaks Island Monday, April 8th at 7:00pm at the Peaks Island Community Center

Peaks Island, Maine - Join the Peaks Island Branch of the Portland Public Library for an evening with Lesléa Newman on Monday, April 8th at 7:00pm in the Peaks Island Community Center.  Lesléa Newman has written over 60 books, many of them for children and adolescents, including the children's classic, Heather Has Two Mommies, the young adult novel, Jailbait, the middle grade novel, Hachiko Waits, and the adult poetry collection, Still Life with Buddy. She has been active during her long and productive working life helping to educate kids and adults on LGBT issues.

Her latest book, October Mourning, is a cycle of poems about the death of Matthew Shepard, the gay twenty-one-year old University of Wyoming student who was lured from a bar by two young men, savagely beaten, tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie, and left to die. The book, a searing and beautiful tribute to Shepard, has recently has been named an American Library Association 2013 Stonewall Honor Book.

Lesléa lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and is a warm, vibrant, and experienced presenter. The event at the Peaks Island Library will be geared to adults (and to adolescents, ages fifteen and older). Lesléa will speak about the writing process and read from her book, October Mourning. Refreshments will be served and her book will be on sale after the reading.