Tickets: $15 ADV | $20 DOS
CCAC Main Stage
An evening of Readers Theater performing short stories by two acclaimed Maine authors: Morgan Talty (Maine Literacy Award for Short Fiction) and Monica Wood (May Sarton Memoir Award, Maine Literary Award, Oprah summer-reading pick). A cast of local professional actors will narrate and perform two stories. Presented by Midcoast Literacy.
Monica Wood & Morgan Talty
Midcoast Literacy’s Readers Theater series introduces audiences to wonderful stories through live performances of adult and children’s literature. Readers Theater is a style of performance that blends the reading aloud of a book and theatrical production before a live audience. The cast of actors simultaneously narrates the story and brings added life to the characters through voice, expression, and movement. A book signing and chance to meet with the authors follows the performance.
In Food for the Common Cold by Morgan Talty, a native boy in Eastern Maine uncovers the losses of the past that keep resurfacing in his family’s present. In Shuffle, Step by Monica Wood, a widower unexpectedly finds himself taking dance lessons with his 13-year-old neighbor after he wins a free class in a raffle.
Morgan Talty is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. He received his BA in Native American Studies from Dartmouth College and his MFA in fiction from Stonecoast’s low-residency program. Named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30,” his story collection Night of the Living Rez is forthcoming from Tin House Books (2022). His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub, and elsewhere. A current Lit Event Fellow for Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance as well as a recent recipient of a grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation, Talty is a writing consultant and a college instructor who teaches courses in both English and Native American Studies. He lives in Levant, Maine.
Monica Wood is a novelist, memoirist, and playwright; the 2019 recipient of the Maine Humanities Council Carlson Prize for contributions to the public humanities; and a recipient of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Distinguished Achievement Award for contributions to the literary arts. Her most recent novel, The One-in-a-Million Boy, has been translated into 20 languages in over 30 countries. She is also the author of When We Were the Kennedys, a New England bestseller, Oprah magazine summer-reading pick, and winner of the May Sarton Memoir Award and the Maine Literary Award. Her widely anthologized short stories have won a Pushcart Prize and been featured on public radio. She lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband, Dan Abbott.
Midcoast Literacy is a non-profit organization based in Bath that has been providing free tutoring and literacy programs to people of all ages in Lincoln, Sagadahoc, and northern Cumberland Counties since 1970. Through a wide range of family literacy and adult literacy programs, the dedicated staff and volunteers strive to help children and adults develop their literacy skills, so they can succeed through all stages of life.