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The ³ÉÈËÖ±²¥'s will host a series of three author programs during spring 2009 in the Sarton Room of the Maine Women Writers Collection in the Abplanalp Library at the Westbrook College Campus of the ³ÉÈËÖ±²¥, 716 Stevens Avenue, Portland, Maine.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information or to RSVP, contact Cally Gurley, curator at 207-221-4324 or cgurley@une.edu

International Polar Year
2009 is the centenary of the Discovery of the North Pole by Robert E. Peary, and is named International Polar Year. Patricia Pierce Erikson's Lecture, “White Woman, White Snow, Blank Page: Josephine Peary as Arctic Author/Explorer,“ is one of a number of celebrating this anniversary.

All events are free and open to the public. For more information or to RSVP, contact Cally Gurley, curator at 207-221-4324 or cgurley@une.edu

Programs

March 19, 2009, 7 p.m.
Karin Woodruff Jackson
“Sarah Orne Jewett’s Consciousness of Nature”

Karin Woodruff Jackson directed the conference “Sarah Orne Jewett: A Writer for our Time” at Westbrook College in June of 1985; she was the guest editor of the Colby Library Quarterly special issue of essays from the Sarah Orne Jewett conference in the Spring of 1986; she was the director of the Maine Humanities Council grant to Westbrook College for study of the Maine Women Writers Collection called “A Goodly Heritage” in 1981-1982. Jackson has also lectured on Harriet Beecher Stowe and Fanny Fern at various libraries in Maine.

April 9, 2009, 7 p.m.
Patricia Pierce Erikson
“White Woman, White Snow, Blank Page: Josephine Peary as Arctic Author/Explorer“

Patricia Pierce Erikson is a Peaks Island-based author of the non-fiction book, Voices of a Thousand People: The Makah Cultural and Research Center (University of Nebraska Press), several chapters in edited collections, and articles in academic journals such as Cultural Anthropology, American Anthropologist, and Ethnohistory.

On a trip to Greenland this past summer she retraced part of Robert Peary’s journey, enabling completion of the manuscript of her historical novel, In the Shadow of the North Pole, the story of the American quest for the North Pole from the perspective of Robert Peary’s wife, Josephine. When she’s not writing, she teaches in the American and New England Studies Department at the University of Southern Maine, consults for museums, or seeks a rush of Arctic air on Maine’s ski slopes.

April 30, 2009, 7 p.m.
Lael Morgan
“Working with Native People and Reporting at the Top of the World”

Lael Morgan, who teaches media writing online for University of Texas at Arlington, is a working photojournalist with more than 40 years experience and 14 non-fiction books to her credit.

Raised in rural Maine, she graduated from Boston University (twice) with degrees in communications, and went on to work for the Juneau Empire, Fairbanks News Miner, Los Angeles Times, Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic, and Casco Bay Weekly.