2023 Festival Keynote speaker was Richard Blanco, poet, author, 5th Presidential Inaugural Poet and advocate for diversity, LGBTQ rights, immigration rights, and arts education.
Meet the 2023 Poets & Performers
Ellen Goldsmith
is a poet and teacher. Left Foot, Right Foot, her recent book, is an illness and recovery story. Her other books include Where to Look, Such Distances and No Pine Tree in This Forest Is Perfect which won the 1997 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Contest. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Professor Emeritus of the City University of New York, she lives in Cushing Maine.
Jason Grundstrom-Whitney
is a husband, father of three, and grandfather of three. He is a writer, poet, musician, and activist, having recently retired after 40 years in the field of substance-use disorders and mental health. His first book Bear, Coyote, Raven was widely acclaimed, and his poetry has been featured in several anthologies. His recording band Osha Root is preparing music for a new release.
John & Rachel Nicholas
are Camden based singer-songwriters who launched the Good Trouble Project (GTP) as a means of supporting peace, justice and environmental causes. They have been making music together for as long as they’ve made their lives together – and their unique brand of Americana, stellar song craft, and soulful harmonies are emotive and inspirational.
John Paul Caponigro
is an internationally collected visual artist and published author. He leads unique adventures in the wildest places on earth to help participants creatively make deeper connections with nature and themselves.
Lucinda Ziesing
is a writer, actor, painter, and producer. Her Public Works paintings are in private and corporate collections. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University, taught on the Theatre Faculty of Sarah Lawrence College, and has appeared in classic and original productions in New York, Los Angeles, and Maine. When she is not writing, she produces outdoor events that bring wonder to the communities of Maine.
Dave Morrison’s
“Poetry Rocks” album was released by Mishara Records in 2015 and has been described as “poems crossing a rope bridge of simple looped guitar grooves.” He has published 17 books of poetry and his poems have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies.
Margaret Haberman
lives and writes in Belfast, Maine. She is, by profession, an American Sign Language interpreter, and teaches at the University of Southern Maine in the Linguistics Department. Her poems have been published in the Island Journal, the journal Spiritus, and selected for the Maine Public Radio program Poems from Here.
Maya Stein
is a Ninja poet, writing guide, and creative adventuress. She has kept a weekly short-form poetry practice, “10-line Tuesday” since 2005, and facilitates writing workshops in person and online. After a 7-year stint in suburban New Jersey, she is now happily ensconced in mid-coast Maine, in a house named Toad Hall. Maya was recently named the Poet Laureate of Belfast.
Jud Caswell
is a Maine singer/songwriter called by Sing Out! Magazine “one of the leading songwriters on the scene. . .highly original and wise beyond his years”. A seventh-generation Mainer, Jud came back home to work for the family business, bringing his college sweetheart to start a family of their own.