A statewide summer reading experience
Read ME is Maine Humanities’ statewide community read offered in partnership with Maine State Library and Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Every summer, the program gets Mainers all reading books recommended by two well-known Maine authors.
Hosted by public libraries all across the state, Read ME connects Maine’s reading community through shared experiences, supports Maine libraries in their work to provide quality summer reading initiatives, and elevates the work of upcoming Maine authors.
2025 Recommending Authors
Julia Bouwsma
Adult Fiction and Non-fiction
Julia Bouwsma lives off-the-grid in the mountains of western Maine where she works as a poet, homesteader, editor, teacher, and small-town librarian. She is Maine’s sixth Poet Laureate, currently serving a term from 2021 to 2026, and is the author of three poetry collections: the forthcoming Death Fluorescence (Sundress Publications, 2025), Midden (Fordham University Press, 2018), and Work by Bloodlight (Cider Press Review, 2017). A 2024 Academy of American Poets’ Poet Laureate Fellow and a two-time recipient of the Maine Literary Award for Poetry Book, Bouwsma has taught in the Creative Writing department at the University of Maine at Farmington, serves on the Community Advisory Board for the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance, and works as the Library Director for Webster Library in Kingfield, ME.
Samara Cole Doyon
Children’s and Young People’s Literature
Samara Cole Doyon is a second generation Haitian American and multi-generational Mainer–this state claiming half the roots of her family tree. She is a wife, mother, and teacher holding a BA in English from the University of Southern Maine and currently completing a Masters in Teaching and Learning.
She has been a regular contributor at Black Girl in Maine Media, has been featured in the Deep Water poetry column of the Portland Press Herald, and has authored children’s books Magnificent Homespun Brown (Tilbury House Publishers, January, 2020), Magic Like That (Lee & Low Books, June 2021), and her most recent, Next Level: A Hymn in Gratitude for Neurodiversity (Tilbury House Publishers, 2024).
2024 Books
Bring Read Me to your library
Over 60 libraries participated in Read ME 2023. Join us again this summer.
Read ME is structured to enable even the smallest, most rural libraries to participate. All that’s required is a commitment to making each of the featured titles available to their patrons.
TOOLKIT
Toolkit for Read ME
Everything you need to convene your community for Read ME.
Past Author TALKS
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