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MWPA moves to the big city
BY SARA DONNELLY
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On December 1, the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance will open its new offices in Portland. The MWPA was founded in 1975 to help Maine writers publish books. Since then, the nonprofit has occupied office space in Brunswick and Bath, has survived a 2004 attempt by its board to dissolve it, and now is struggling to remake itself as a more diverse resource for the state’s writers. In line with this effort, executive director Shonna Milliken Humphrey this week announced Portland will be the new home base for MWPA, starting next month. Humphrey says the majority of the organization’s some 1000 members live in Cumberland County, and the majority of those people live in Port city. So, like a bookworm to a paperback, MWPA comes Portland-way. "Like it or hate it, Portland has the reputation of having a lot of arts organizations connected to it and, as the state’s only literary-arts organization, that’s where we need to be," Humphrey says. "It’s important to be where our members area, it’s important to get a strong center before we can be an effective organization." Humphrey is the only full-time MWPA staffer. She currently has a part-time helper but will lose her when MWPA moves to Portland, so anyone looking for employment should give her a shout. Starting this December, MWPA will be located in room 318 at the Glickman Library on the University of Southern Maine campus. It will be open Monday through Thursday, from around 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, or whenever Humphrey is in the office; she suggests you call ahead before swinging by. Besides a phone number change (to 228.8263) MWPA’s offerings will remain the same, just centered in Portland for us lazy city folk. One new event Humphrey is excited about will be MWPA’s first-ever awards gala this March for their Maine Literary Awards competition. Check out their website at www.mainewriters.org for more.
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