Other Announced Presenters

Moira Linehan
Moira Linehan’s debut collection, If No Moon, won the 2006 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry Open Competition and was published in 2007 by Southern Illinois University Press. After careers as a high school English teacher and an administrator in high tech and academic settings, Linehan now writes full-time and occasionally leads poetry writing workshops. Her poems have appeared in such journals as Alaska Quarterly Review, Crab Orchard Review, Notre Dame Review, Poetry, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly. Twice her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She has had residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts, the Poetry Center of Chicago, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In addition to her MAT/English from Simmons College, Linehan holds a MFA in Writing from Vermont College. She lives in Winchester, MA.

Michael Kimball
Michael Kimball is the author of four novels, Firewater Pond, Green Girls, Mouth to Mouth, and Undone, which received the Fresh Talent Award in the U.K. and remained on the London Times' top ten bestseller list for two months in 1996. Stage plays include Ghosts of Ocean House, nominated for the 2007 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, Best Enemies, and Santa Come Home, all staged in 2006, and The Secret of Comedy, was produced in the fall of 2007. He has had original screenplays and novels optioned by movie companies and written episodes for the TV series Monsters.

Betsy Sholl
in 2006 Betsy Sholl was chosen to be the Poet Laureate of Maine, a five-year position named by the governor. She has published six collections of poetry, most recently Late Psalm (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004). Don't Explain won the 1997 Felix Pollak Prize from the University of Wisconsin, and her book The Red Line won the 1991 AWP Prize for Poetry. Her chapbooks include Pick A Card, winner of the Maine Chapbook Competition in 1991, and Betsy Sholl: Greatest Hits, 1974-2004, Pudding House Publications. She teaches poetry at USM and in the MFA program of Vermont College.         

Diane LesBecquets
Diane LesBecquets is the author of three novels and  the Director of Creative Writing at Southern New Hampshire University. She was hailed by Publisher’s Weekly as a “writer to watch” after the publication of her first novel, The Stones of Mourning Creek. The book for young adults received a starred review from Kirkus and was the Independent Bookseller Book of the Year for 2001. Her second novel, Love, Cajun Style, was described by Kirkus as “realistic, affecting, and enjoyable throughout” and received a starred review from Booklist. Les Becquets received the PEN American Phyllis Reynolds Working Writer Fellowship in 2007 for her third novel, Ice Out, which is scheduled to be released by Bloomsbury next January.

Áine Greaney
Born and brought up in Co. Mayo, Ireland, Áine now lives and writes in Newburyport. In 2006, her chapbook short story collection, The Sheepbreeders Dance was released from Flume Press. Her debut novel, The Big House was published in 2003. Her second novel, Dance Lessons is under consideration. She has won the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Irish News Short Fiction Award, The Hennessy Award, and the 2006 Flume Press Fiction Chapbook Award. She has taught writing workshops at Emerson College, the New Hampshire Writers Project and the Seacoast Writers Association. She was on the 2007 faculty of the Cape Cod Writers Conference. She holds a bachelor’s in English and education (National University of Ireland—studied under Seamus Heaney) and a master’s in English and writing. She has been a fellow of the New York State WritersInstitute and the Writer in Residence at Chester College of New England.

Jennifer Richard Jacobson
received her master's in education from Harvard Graduate School of Education. She has taught preschool through sixth grade and has served as Curriculum Coordinator, Head of Studies or Language Arts Specialist in several New England schools. Jennifer is the author of ten books for teachers including The Big Book of Reproducible Graphic Organizers (Scholastic, 1999) (Now in it's eighteenth printing!), a parenting series: How is My -Grader Doing in School: What to Expect and How to Help (Simon & Schuster, 1998-2000) and many children's books including Andy Shane and the Very Bossy Dolores Starbuckle (Candlewick, 2005), Winnie At Her Best (Houghton, 2006)and Stained (Simon & Schuster, 2005).

Download Summer Newsletter (#2) and Poetry Contest Announcement

Download Updated Summer Newsletter (#3)(June 23, 2008)

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