Le petit rassemblement des artistes Franco-Américain: A celebration of modern expression

The Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine invites you to join us at LA Arts, 168 Lisbon Street in Lewiston on Saturday, November 2, 2024 at 1 pm for a half day event featuring a panel discussion of Franco-American creatives led by Paul Paré,

Émilie-Noëlle Provost, Robert Sylvain, and Jeri Theriault, and ending with a talk by Dr. Susan Pinette about Franco-American activism.

The panelists will open the event at 1 pm, discussing their creative processes and how their Franco-American identity and heritage informs their craft. Following the panel there will be time for a Q&A as well as a break to mingle and enjoy refreshments. At 4 pm, Dr. Susan Pinette will begin her talk, covering student Franco-American activism at the University of Maine in Orono.

The University of Maine’s Franco American Centre first began in the early 1970s when a group of engaged students advocated that the University recognize and teach the history and culture of Maine’s “French Fact.” The students called themselves the Franco American Resource Opportunity Group, or FAROG, recoding the discriminatory slur commonly used against Franco Americans. In this talk, Susan Pinette will explore the three contexts — U.S. social justice movements, Québec politics, and the Franco communities themselves — that were crucial to the emergence of this movement on the University of Maine Orono campus.

Susan Pinette was born and raised in Maine in a vibrant, working-class, extended Franco-American family. She completed her graduate work at the University of California, Irvine. She is Professor of Modern Languages and Director of Franco American Programs at the University of Maine in Orono. She is currently working with other scholars and archivists to evelop a web-based portal to Franco American archival materials (FADA: Franco American Digital Archive/Portail franco-américain). With this team, she recently received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to digitize close to 35,000 Franco-American primary documents and manuscripts.

Our panelists are:

Paul Paré has had a lengthy career as a newspaper reporter, radio and television host and producer. He won an Emmy in 1980. He’s worked in public relations for a variety of nonprofits. His articles have been published in Canadian journals, Le Forum of the University of Maine Orono, and in Wolf Moon Journal. His autobiographical novel Singing in the Vernacular was published in 2008 by iUniverse. His novel Road Kill was published in 2015.

Émilie-Noëlle Provost is a Franco-American author and writer from Lowell, Massachusetts, where she lives with her husband, daughter, and three crazy rescue cats. Her second novel, The River Is Everywhere (Vine Leaves Press, 2023), the coming-of-age story of a Franco-American teenager, was a finalist for a National Indie Excellence Award, an American Fiction Award, and an American Legacy Book Award. The novel was also the recipient of a 2023 National Indie Excellence Award Sponsor’s Prize. Her third novel, the first in a series of literary romance stories set on Île d’Orleans, an island in the Saint Lawrence River near Québec City, will be published in 2026.

Émilie-Noëlle has held editorial roles at four magazine titles and has written hundreds of articles. Her short stories have been published in several magazines, journals, and anthologies. When she’s not writing or vacuuming up cat fur, she can often be found on a hiking trail in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Her other hobbies include listening to folk and roots music, binge-watching European crime dramas, traveling, and gardening. See what she’s up to at emilienoelleprovost.com.

Robert Sylvain, Jr. is an Acadian-Mainer committed to bringing the rich musical heritage of his ancestors forward to a new generation of listeners, exploring the depths of traditional culture and the edges of modern culture to present heritage music that is both relevent and timeless. With over 30 years of professional experience in performance and recording arts, Robert has earned accolades for innovation and inspiration among trad-music aficionados and critics worldwide.

Robert’s grandmother, Elisa Sylvain née Thibodeau, grew up in the St. John River Valley, in the heart of Maine’s Acadian region As the keeper of songs in his generation, Robert inherited his Mémère’s cherished notebook of old Acadian ballads, which he has painstakingly researched for their historical sources, found the original melodies, translated and arranged the songs to present to new audiences as proof that Acadian culture still lives in Maine. Thanks in part to a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, a songbook and CD set of the music is now available for purchase.

Jeri Theriault grew up in Waterville, Maine and graduated from Colby College, later earning her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her teaching career spanned thirty-four years, six of them as English Department Chair at the International School of Prague. Her poetry collections include Radost, my red, In the Museum of Surrender, and Self-Portrait as Homestead. She is also the editor of WAIT: Poems from the Pandemic. Her poems and reviews have appeared in The Texas Review, The Atlanta Review, Asheville Poetry Review, Plume, and many other publications. Recent awards include the 2023 Maine Arts Commission Literary Arts Fellowship, the 2023 Monson Arts Fellowship and the 2022 NORward Prize (New Ohio Review). Jeri is also a visual artist.

This event will be held at LA Arts’ downtown Lewiston venue on Lisbon Street. Parking is available on the street or in the Canal Street Garage, the Centerville Garage, or the Oak Street Garage.

For more information or to register for this event, contact the FAC archivist, Anna Faherty at anna.faherty@maine.edu or by phone (207) 753-6545. If you have questions about disability access or need to request disability accommodations (e.g. sign language interpreters, materials in electronic format, etc.), please contact Anna. Requests should be made as soon as possible to allow sufficient time for the accommodation process.

Registration is required, and we ask that you RSVP two weeks in advance of 11/2