Portland Public Library’s Literary events feature authors from New England and throughout the country in conversation about new works. Authors are interviewed by literary friends, colleagues or critics.
PortLit
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13 episodes
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Podcast Overview
Portland Public Library’s Literary events feature authors from New England and throughout the country in conversation about new works. Authors are interviewed by literary friends, colleagues or critics.
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Publishing Since
5/20/2021
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Recent Episodes
March 20, 2023
Spotlight Lecture: Meghan Gilliss talks about Lungfish with Steger Strong
<p>“Lungfish is a force of nature—a deeply felt marvel of a book that navigates grief, parenthood, and the mysteries of family with unrelenting power and precision. Here is a story about the islands we build and carry with us. Here is storytelling at its best.” —Paul Yoon, author of Snow Hunters and Run Me to Earth</p> <p>Tuck is slow to understand the circumstances that have driven her family to an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine, the former home of her deceased grandmother where she once spent her childhood summers. Squatting there now, she must care for her spirited young daughter and scrape together enough money to leave before winter arrives—or before they are found out.</p> <p>Relying on the island for sustenance and answers—bladderwrack, rosehips, tenacious little green crabs; smells held by the damp walls of the house, field guides and religious texts, a failed invention left behind by her missing father—Tuck lives moment-by-moment through the absurdity, beauty, paranoia, and hunger that shoots through her life, as her husband struggles to detox.</p> <p>Exquisitely written and formally daring, Lungfish tells the story of a woman grappling through the lies she has been told—and those she has told herself—to arrive at the truth of who she is and where she must go. Meghan Gilliss’s debut is a brilliant and heartbreaking novel about addiction, doubt, marriage, motherhood, and learning to see in the dark.</p> <p><br></p> <p><strong>Meghan Gilliss </strong>attended the Bennington Writing Seminars and is a fellow of the Hewnoaks Artist Residency. She has worked as a journalist, a bookseller, a librarian, and a hospital worker, and lives in Portland, Maine. Lungfish is her first novel. </p> <p><strong>Lynn Steger Strong</strong> is the author of the novels Hold Still, Want, and Flight. Her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York, The Paris Review, Time, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at The Pratt Institute, Fairfield University, Catapult, and Columbia University and will be the Visiting Fiction Writer at Bates College for the 2022-2023 school year. She was born and raised in South Florida.</p> <p>ABOUT THE AUTHORS</p>
July 11, 2022
Spotlight Lecture: Morgan Talty discusses Night of the Living Rez with Greg Brown
<p>Morgan Talty and Gregory Brown are live at Bunker Brewing Co. discussing “Night of the Living Rez”, Talty’s highly anticipated debut collection of short stories at the Spotlight Lecture Series.</p> <p>How do the living come back to life?</p> <p>Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.</p> <p>In twelve striking, luminescent stories, author Morgan Talty—with searing humor, abiding compassion, and deep insight—breathes life into tales of family and community bonds as they struggle with a painful past and an uncertain future. A boy unearths a jar that holds an old curse, which sets into motion his family’s unraveling; a man, while trying to swindle some pot from a dealer, discovers a friend passed out in the woods, his hair frozen into the snow; a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer’s projects the past onto her grandson, and thinks he is her dead brother come back to life; and two friends, inspired by Antiques Roadshow, attempt to rob the tribal museum for valuable root clubs.</p> <p>In a collection that examines the consequences and merits of inheritance, Night of the Living Rez is an unforgettable portrayal of a Native community and marks the arrival of a standout talent in contemporary fiction.</p> <p><u><strong>About the authors</strong></u></p> <p><strong>Morgan Talty</strong> is a citizen of the Penobscot Indian Nation where he grew up. Named one of Narrative’s “30 Below 30,” Talty’s work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Shenandoah, TriQuarterly, Narrative Magazine, LitHub, and elsewhere. He lives in Levant, Maine.</p> <p><strong>Gregory Brown </strong>grew up along Penobscot Bay. His stories have appeared in Tin House, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Shenandoah, Epoch, and Narrative Magazine. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is the recipient of scholarships and fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. He lives in Maine with his family. The Lowering Days is his first novel.</p> <p>About the Series » Spotlight Lecture Series</p> <p>Portland Public Library hosts nationally touring authors at the Spotlight Series. Authors talk about newly released work followed by audience Q&A and a book signing. The series is presented by Portland Public Library in partnership with Print: A Bookstore, The Press Hotel, and Bunker Brewing Company.</p>
May 19, 2022
Spotlight Lecture: John Duncan and Chris Busby talk about Take it Easy: Portland in the 1970's
<p>Join PPL at Bunker Brewing for a conversation between Chris Busby, editor of The Mainer, and John Duncan about Duncan’s new book “Take it Easy: Portland in the 1970’s”. Masks are strongly recommended.</p> <p>In the 1970s, decades before this working-class Maine city was reborn as one of the trendiest and priciest small cities in America, Portland stood anxiously at an inflection point. Moribund and neglected, it was walking a knife’s edge toward an uncertain future as urban renewal efforts demolished aging buildings, preservationists rallied to save the city’s historic character, and no one knew if any small Northeastern city could ever thrive again in a modern world. Take it Easy: Portland in the 1970s revisits those uneasy days through a remarkable collection of more than 130 long-forgotten, black-and-white images captured by dishwasher, cab driver, and budding street photographer John Duncan. In images he shot while hanging with friends, walking the streets, or driving his taxi, Duncan emotionally and evocatively captured the innocence, mood, fun, spirit, struggle, and melancholy of a city and its people during an iconic era. As Duncan clicked away with his Canon at the fleeting moments, capturing his daily life with remarkable honesty, the downtown’s luster slowly crumbled. But its department stores still beckoned shoppers, rowdy dive bars ruled the night, and young people could still find affordable rents, cheap meals, and good times.</p>
13 total episodes available
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