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2025 Plunkett Poetry Festival will be on Saturday, April 26

Featuring keynote speaker Natalie Diaz

Diaz is a Pulitzer-prize-winning Mojave poet, language activist, and educator. We’re thrilled to bring her to Maine, so let’s fill the auditorium!

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About the Plunkett Poetry Festival

The Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival, held in April each year, was established in 2002 to honor the memory and accomplishments of Terry Plunkett, an English professor at the University of Maine at Augusta for nearly thirty years. An outstanding teacher and mentor to many students, Terry was also co-editor of Kennebec: A Portfolio of Maine Writing, an annual magazine published by the university from 1977-1992 and distributed free throughout the state. Many Maine writers first saw their work in print in Kennebec, thanks to Terry's encouragement and guidance.

A poet and fiction writer as well as a teacher and editor, Terry helped organize and direct the Maine Poets Festival, a hugely popular celebration of poets and poetry, which ran from 1976-1983 at UMA, the College of the Atlantic, and the Maine College of Art.

His son, Duff Plunkett, also a poet, was a champion of the arts in general and the Plunkett Festival in particular. He sat on the organizing committee for 17 years, where he brought his signature wit, creativity, and ingenuity to the festival program. In Portland, Duff was a mainstay at readings and a supporter of both developing and celebrated poets. He worked as an international economist, traveling extensively around the globe, especially in Africa. Fluent in at least eight different languages, Duff's cultural breadth was extensive.
To honor the memory of both Terry and Duff, the festival has been renamed the Plunkett Poetry Festival.

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Plunkett Maine Poetry Festival Upcoming FestivalHistoryArchive Mark your calendars: the 2025 Plunkett Poetry Festival will be on Saturday, April 26 Featuring keynote speaker Natalie Diaz Diaz is a Pulitzer-prize-winning Mojave poet, language activist, and educator. We're thrilled to bring her to Maine, so let's fill the auditorium! About Natalie Diaz...

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2025 Camden Festival of Poetry

May 13-17, 2025

with keynote speaker Jane Hirshfield, award-winning poet, translator & essayist.

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Creating community connection through poetry.

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A deep dive into

THE BERRY PICKERS

Join us for a deep dive into The Berry Pickers, the debut, award-winning novel from Amanda Peters – a powerful book set right here in Maine.

Saturday, April 5, 2025

Cobscook Institute, Trescott
and live online via Zoom

8:00 AM-4:00 PM

Readers Retreat is a chance to meet other readers from across Maine and hear from and talk with writers, scholars, and experts on a great book and its context. This year’s event is also a vital opportunity to sit with events, historical and ongoing, that touch and shape people’s lives here in the place we live.

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A deep dive into

THE BERRY PICKERS

Join us for a deep dive into The Berry Pickers, the debut, award-winning novel from Amanda Peters - a powerful book set right here in Maine.

Saturday, April 5, 2025

Cobscook Institute, Trescott
and live online via Zoom

8:00 AM-4:00 PM

Readers Retreat is a chance to meet other readers from across Maine and hear from and talk with writers, scholars, and experts on a great book and its context. This year's event is also a vital opportunity to sit with events, historical and ongoing, that touch and shape people's lives here in the place we live.

AGENDA

8:00 AM

Doors Open & Registration

8:30 AM

Book Signing with Amanda Peters

9:00 AM

Welcome

9:20 AM

Laura Furlan

10:05 AM

Break

11:13 AM

Amanda Peters in Conversation with Laura Furlan

12:20 AM

Lunch

1:20 PM

Maria Girouard

2:05 PM

Individual Reflection Time

2:20 PM

Break, Snack, and Coffee | Book Signing with Amanda Peters

2:35 PM

Panel Discussion

3:35 PM

Closing Remarks

ACCESSIBILITY ACKNOWLEDGMENT

It's important to us that everyone who wants to attend this event feels supported and comfortable in doing so.

We will have captioning during the event.

We will have a quiet space available to take breaks.

The outdoors is easily accessible.

Cobscook Institute is a fragrance-free facility.

If joining on Zoom, we encourage you to turn off your camera, move around, and take breaks when needed.

The parking lot and pathways between buildings are gravel.

If you need ASL or other language interpretation, please let us know by March 14th. Late requests may not be possible to fill.

Have questions? Email us at info@mainehumanities.org

OUr Book

for Readers Retreat 2025

In Amanda Peters' debut novel, a four-year-old Mi'kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a mystery that will haunt the survivors, unravel a family, and remain unsolved for nearly fifty years.
July 1962. Following in the tradition of Indigenous workers from Nova Scotia, a Mi'kmaq family arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family's youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister's disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren't telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

2025 Speakers

AMANDA PETERS

Author of The Berry Pickers

Attending and presenting in-person at Cobscook Institute

About Amanda Peters

Amanda Peters is a mixed-race woman of Mi'kmaq and European ancestry, born and raised in the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia.

In 2022, Amanda completed a Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indians Arts (IAIA) in New Mexico. In 2021, Amanda won the Indigenous Voices Award for her work of short fiction, Waiting for the Long Night Moon. She was also selected to participate in the 2021 Writers Trust of Canada Rising Stars Program by Metis poet and novelist, Katherena Vermette.

Her short fiction and non-fiction have been published in The Antigonish Review, Grain Magazine, The Alaska Quarterly Review, The Dalhousie Review, and Filling Station Magazine.

Amanda's first novel, The Berry Pickers, was published in 2023 by HarperCollins in Canada and by Catapult in the US. The novel was a finalist for the Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the Amazon First Book Award in Canada, and won the Barnes and Noble Discover Prize and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction in the US. The Berry Pickers won the Dartmouth Book Award and the Crime Writers of Canada First Crime Novel Award, and has been translated into sixteen languages around the world. Her most recent book of short fiction, Waiting for the Long Night Moon, was published August, 2024, to critical acclaim.

LAURA M. FURLAN

President, Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures, and Associate Professor of English, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Attending and presenting online via Zoom

About Laura Furlan

Laura M. Furlan is Associate Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches courses in Native American literature, American Studies, and creative nonfiction. She earned a PhD in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

She is the author of Indigenous Cities: Urban Indian Fiction and the Histories of Relocation (2017, Nebraska), a study of contemporary Indigenous novels that are set in urban spaces. In 2020, she co-edited a special issue of the Massachusetts Review of new Native writing, and in 2021 she co-edited a special issue of Studies in American Indian Literatures focused on Deborah Miranda's memoir Bad Indians in which her award-winning essay, "The Archives of Deborah Miranda's Bad Indians" appears.

She is working on a book project that studies the uses of the archive in contemporary Native writing and art. Her creative work has appeared in Sentence, Sovereign Erotics (2011, Arizona), Touchstone, and ZYZZYVA. She has slowly been writing a memoir that chronicles her experience as an adoptee of Native descent. She is the current president of the Association for the Study of American Indian Literatures (ASAIL).

MARIA GIROUARD

a Tribal Historian, Penobscot Nation

Attending and presenting in-person at Cobscook InstitutE

About Maria Girouard

Maria Girouard, Penobscot from Penobscot Nation, is a Tribal Historian with an expertise in the Maine Indian Land Claims. She earned her Master's degree in History from the University of Maine and authored the thesis entitled, The Original Meaning and Intent of the Maine Indian Land Clams: Penobscot Perspectives. Maria is a longstanding community organizer, environmental steward, and educator who has spoken extensively on topics such as Penobscots' cultural connections to the Penobscot River, tribal-state relations, the Maine Indian Land Claims, food sovereignty and justice, and the sacred mountain of Katahdin.

Maria is a co-founder of Sunlight Media Collective and co-wrote the documentary The Penobscot: Ancestral River, Contested Territory, a film that traverses the landscape of tribal-state relations in Maine and tells a story of an enduring struggle for justice and cultural survival.

Maria was the first Executive Director for Wabanaki REACH, a statewide, native-led non-profit that ushered in the Maine Wabanaki State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission and works toward truth, healing, and change in the Dawnland. In this capacity she co-hosted the talk radio program Dawnland Signals on WERU/FM. She currently serves the Penobscot Tribe as an elected member of the Penobscot Tribal Council and as the Agricultural Program Manager stewarding the newly established Penobscot Nation Tribal Farm.

Tickets & Lodging

Tickets

In-person and Online

$10

We recommend this price for those who struggle to meet basic needs and have no expendable income

$25

We recommend this price for those who are able to meet basic needs and have some expendable income.

$50

We recommend this price for those who comfortably meet their basic needs and have expendable income.

$100

We recommend this price for those who have ample expendable income.

Lodging

Heartwood Lodge at Cobscook Institute

optional lodging For $90.00 - $180.00 per night

past Books & Speakers

Some of the books, speakers, and talks from previous years

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MHC Readers Retreat | Maine Humanities Council

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MHC Readers Retreat is a multi-day event centered around MHC's featured book. Visit the MHC Readers Retreat page to find the next retreat.

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EPOCH is a creative magazine that publishes artwork and writing by teens in grades 7 – 12. Have you written something you liked for a class or for yourself? Did you really get into an art assignment? Submit your best work via email to be considered for the next volume.

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EPOCH Magazine – Skidompha Public Library

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Workshops — Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance

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Workshops across the state of Maine and online. Open to writers of all levels, spanning a wide array of genres and topics.

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Share a link or details by commenting below.

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Following the example of the long-running Tip column from The New York Times Magazine, write a description in 400 words or fewer about how to do a task.

All entries must be submitted by March 12, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

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How to … : An Informational Writing Contest for Teenagers

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We invite students to explain how to do any task in 400 words or fewer. Contest dates: Feb. 12 to March 12, 2025.