Over $6,500 supporting seven projects across Maine

2024’s summer Arts & Humanities Grant awardees include an exhibit of handmade books, a pair of community conversation events, a place-based art-making and storytelling initiative, and more.

RSU 24 Adult Education

Inside Out: Art and Writing by Residents of the Hancock County Jail

Sullivan

$1,000

The Art Department

TAD Talks: Art Department Interviews the Greater Portland Community

Portland

$655

First Parish Church of Brunswick

The Malaga Ship: A Story of Maine and the Middle Passage

Brunswick

$1,000

Cranberry Isles School/Ashley Bryan School

Little People of the Dawn: A Collaboration

Hancock

$1,000

Side x Side

The Art and Science of Pollinators: My Bug Matters!

Cumberland

$1,000

Atlantic Black Box

WHERE2024: The Kennebec Watershed Walk

Portland

$1,000

Mayo Street Arts

Creating a New Home: The Power and Plight of Immigrant Families

Portland

$1,000
Learn more about Maine Humanities Grants

Over $15,000 supporting Eight projects across Maine

2024’s spring Mini Grant awardees include a summer history program, a poetry workshop, a symposium celebrating links between food and social justice movements, and more.

Lincoln County Historical Association

Summer with the Past: Hands-on History Summer Program

Wiscasset

$2,000

Wabanaki REACH

Beyond the Claims– Stories from the Land & the Heart

Stillwater

$2,000

Indigo Arts Alliance

The Welcome Table

Portland

$7,500

Center for Teaching and Learning

Workshopping Poets

Edgecomb

$2,000

Skidompha Public Library

Skidompha Public Library Poetry Anthology

Damariscotta

$1,039

Center Theatre for the Performing Arts

Building Community Through the Arts

Dover-Foxcroft

$2,000

Bath Area Family YMCA

Community Conversations to Reduce Ageism and Empower Older Adults

Bath

$2,000

Denmark Arts Center

A Ship Called Malaga: All That is Maine and More

Denmark

$2,000
Learn more about Maine Humanities Grants

Join Our Team

Digital & Social Media Coordinator

We are looking for someone who will collaborate with the Communications Team and other staff to create digital and online content that tells the story of Maine Humanities’ programming, partnerships, and impact.

The primary work of this position will be:
  • Creating and editing content for graphics, video, audio, and other digital media.
  • Writing and adapting copy and key messaging for online and digital use, including social media and website.
  • Managing Maine Humanities’ social media accounts and campaigns
  • Supporting staff with online publicizing of Maine Humanities’ annual public events.
  • Working with the Communications Team to ensure consistent branding and messaging across Maine Humanities’ online and digital spaces.

Application Deadline: Friday, May 31

Learn More and Apply

Over $88,000 supporting 12 projects across Maine

2024’s Major Grant awardees include book & author events, conferences, a film screening panel discussion, a podcast, and more.

ITP Productions

Indigo Arts Alliance Presents Voices and Visions the Podcast

Portland

$7,500

Island Readers & Writers

Dear Teacher: A Celebration of Literacy & Rural Education

Mount Desert

$7,500

Maine Discovery Museum

River in Our Backyard – Pαnawάhpskewi

Bangor

$7,500

Third Thought Initiatives for Civic Engagement

Can We? Connect

Portland

$7,485

Abbe Museum

Abbe Museum’s Dawnland Festival of Arts & Ideas

Bar Harbor

$7,500

University of Southern Maine Art Gallery

Under/current

Gorham

$7,453

Tourmaline Media

Dreaming Water

Bethel

$6,500

Maine Museum of Innovation, Learning and Labor

Opportunity for Healing: Preserving and Memorializing the Lewiston-Auburn Community Response to the October 25 Mass Shooting

Lewiston

$7,500

Bates Dance Festival

BDF x CRAV Panel: The Continuum of Black American Artistry

Lewiston

$7,500

Studio B

19 Towns, 19 Stories: Beyond Addiction in Lincoln County

Damariscotta

$7,500

The Telling Room

Sharing Youth Voices: Support for The Telling Room’s Spring 2024 Publications and Audience Engagement

Portland

$7,500

Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center

Courts of Belonging: A Documentary Film & Public Engagement Initiative

Portland

$7,500
Learn more about Maine Humanities Grants

Announcing the Featured Books for Summer 2024!

Recommending Author Jaed Coffin has made his picks for the Maine Humanities’ statewide community read—Marpheen Chann’s Moon in Full and Shannon Bowring’s The Road to Dalton.

“Marpheen’s memoir helps all of us imagine Maine in ways that maybe we’ve never been asked to before.”

Jaed Coffin, Recommending Author

The Road to Dalton reads more like a collage than a singular painting—it’s a novel with so many tricks up its sleeve.”

JAED COFFIN, Recommending Author
Bring Read ME to your library

$5,000 supporting five projects across maine

Civil Rights Club at Scarborough High School

Guest Speaker Series & Book Study

Scarborough

$1,000

Penobscot Marine Museum

Artist Shoots Artists: Peggy McKenna and the Midcoast Maine Art Scene

Searsport

$1,000

Veronica Perez

braiding circles

Westbrook

$1,000

Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition

Inside Vision

Lisbon

$1,000

Elder Akewi

Queering: Community

South Portland

$1,000
Learn more about MHC Grants

2024 Constance H. Carlson Public Humanities Prize

Accepting nominations October 1 – December 31, 2023

Do you know of a Maine resident who has connected and empowered people in our state through the public humanities?

Every two years, Maine Humanities celebrates how people in Maine have contributed to the public humanities—by going deep within their communities and regions, or by reaching the whole state. 

Learn more and nominate a Maine resident

Artwork: Eamon White

Over $11,000 supporting six projects across Maine

Literacy Volunteers of Kennebec

Intergenerational Literacy

Augusta

$2,000

Woman for Healthy Rural Living

The Banned Book Groups

Milbridge

$1,950

Maine Maritime Museum

2023 Symposium: Advancing Access and Equity

Bath

$2,000

SPEEDWELL Projects

A Discussion of Wabanaki Sovereignty

Portland

$2,000

Patten Free Library

Race and Equity: Many Voices

Bath

$2,000

Evelyn Wong

Lunar New Year in Waterville, Maine

Portland

$2,000
Learn more about MHC Grants

Announcing Jaed Coffin as Recommending Author for Read ME 2024

Coffin’s selections for our 2024 statewide summer read will be announced in January with library registration opening in February.

Jaed Coffin is the author of the memoirs A Chant to Soothe Wild Elephants and Roughhouse Friday. His essays and stories have been featured in the New York Times, The Sun Magazine, Snap Judgment, Moth Radio Hour, Best American Travel Writing, and TED Channel. A contributing editor at Down East magazine, he teaches journalism and creative writing at the University of New Hampshire and has spoken at over twenty colleges and universities. He lives in his hometown of Brunswick with his wife and two daughters. 

Learn more about Read ME

Over $6,000 supporting seven projects across maine

Franco-American Heritage Center

Books and Stories at the Franco Center

Lewiston

$1,000

Chebeague Island Historical Society

1890 Passamaquoddy Wax Cylinder Recordings and Native Legends Through Song and Dance

Chebeague Island

$925

Whitefield Library Association

The Petra and Mo Show at Whitefield Library

Whitefield

$1,000

Millay House Rockland

Never Through Me Shall You Be Overcome: Poets in Resistance & Solidarity

Rockland

$1,000

ArtWaves

Standing Stories

Northeast Harbor

$1,000

Maine Maritime Museum

Engaging All: Inclusive Exhibition Research and Accessibility Planning, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Audiences

Bath

$1,000

Ethereal Roots LLC

The Joy Truck Project: Traveling Community Resource Center

Dover-Foxcroft

$1,000
Learn more about MHC Grants