On Thursday, October 23rd at 6:30pm, members of Jesup Memorial Library's weekly online writers’ group will read and talk about their writing, how the group works, and how you can become a member. Featured writers will include Michelle Bates, Lisa Boblett, Joan FitzGerald, Stephanie Lyn, Andrew McQuinn, Dona Parker, Steven Roiphe, and Carol Woolman.
Michelle Bates graduated with a degree in Psychology from University of Maine at Farmington. She is a stay-at-home mom who babysits and cleans homes. She writes lyrics, short stories, and novels. Her motivation for writing is to educate her daughters when they are older about adult topics to keep them well informed. Also, she writes comedic stories to entertain friends and family. She will attempt to publish her stories, but will remain passionate about writing no matter what happens.
Lisa Boblett is a retired Social Worker who resides in Asheville, North Carolina. She stayed in Bar Harbor, Maine for several months in 2024, working as a seasonal employee at a local inn. In 2013 she self-published her first novel Dreams of Sand written under the pen name Annalise Bernadette. She has started work on a new project also set in Michigan at the turn of the 20th century. She enjoys contra dancing, hiking, writers retreats and hosting tours of the Thomas Wolfe Memorial House in Asheville.
Before children, Joan FitzGerald was an award-winning financial news reporter. Since children, she has written short stories and essays, and a middle grade, environmental fantasy. She is currently at work on an adult dystopian novel. The Jesup Writers group has been an essential support for her work.
Stephanie Lyn has recently emerged from a protracted writing hiatus to expose her innermost thoughts and feelings through poetry and fiction. To further torture herself, Stephanie reads these works aloud to strangers. In her spare time, she is co-producing a film on the transformative power of breathwork in the correctional system. A resident of Los Angeles (for some unknown reason), Stephanie is working on a narrative in verse about the evolution of a relationship, as viewed through the lens of addiction.
Andrew McQuinn got his degree in video production from the New England School of Communications. After graduating he spent six years in Las Vegas, working as a stagehand. He now resides in Bangor where he works as a care coordinator. When he’s not writing, Andrew is spending time with his amazing partner Louis, or his feline fur baby Marty. Andrew has several novels in the works he hopes to get published over the next year or two. Playing it out Straight is his debut novel, and The Boatswain’s Mate is his latest.
Dona Parker has followed her passions for creative expression throughout her life through painting, clay work, writing and whatever peaked her interests in the moment. In her work with Hospice she gave groups for caregivers, bereavement and individuals. She developed & taught classes on Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way, encouraging others to bring their creativity to life. She moved back to Maine for the second time in 2009. When her husband died in 2017, grief poems began pouring out. Writing these poems & stories became her way to heal. She will read from her soon to be published book, Through the Eyes of Grief: A Celebration of Love.
Steven Roiphe holds a degree in Psychology from Harvard, which he appreciates more now than during previous presidential administrations. His prose has appeared in a number of literary magazines, garnering a Pushcart Prize nomination. Steven lives with his wife and young son in Lamoine, where he’s writing one novel about sentient clown puppets who battle for America’s soul, while seeking a book agent for another about a bratty possessing spirit’s attempts to spark social justice down through US history.
Carol Woolman was born and raised in southern New Jersey. She had a 30-year career as a psychotherapist until she was 70. She has been a Quaker for the past 50 years. Carol moved to Maine in 1968 and raised four children. Her youngest child, Mark Horner, died in 1998, when he was 25. Her new book, Ecology of Grief, A Mother’s Witness, is about living through that death.