University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing, in partnership with Black Travel Maine, is thrilled to launch the Stonecoast Writers’ Lab, a three-day immersive writing workshop. The theme of this summer’s Lab is Refuge. Beginning on Juneteenth, participants will explore refuge as a personal, historical, and cultural act. Through generative workshops, readings, community salons, and excursions, participants will examine how refuge and its many interpretations (i.e., physical, emotional, contextual, and spiritual) are shaped by memory, migration, place, and belonging.

Locations
The Stonecoast Writers’ Lab will be held at historical and cultural sites in Portland, Maine, including the following:

  • Abyssinian Meeting House—listed on the National Register of Historic Places—stories still vibrate through its walls. Built in 1828, this enduring landmark sheltered a community, nurtured faith, and gave refuge to the abolitionist efforts that helped shape a community.
  • Green Memorial AME Zion Church, a Gothic Revival building completed in 1914, chronicles a community bound together by worship, activism, shared meals, and the unwavering work of cultivating community across generations through oral history and storytelling.
  • Maine Freedom Trail is an immersive trail that showcases a larger narrative—of courage, resistance, history, and community—woven across Maine’s landscape.
  • Talbot Lecture Hall, University of Southern Maine, honoring Gerald E. Talbot— an eighth-generation Black Mainer, educator, author, historian, military veteran, civil and human rights activist, founding president of the Portland NAACP, and the first African American elected to the Maine State Legislature and to chair the State Board of Education.

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Authors, Poets, Guests, and Presenters

Faith Adiele  is the author of Meeting Faith, an award-winning account of ordaining as Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that is widely taught, is the subject of multiple studies, and regularly appears on essential travel listicles For more information about Faith

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JJ Amaworo Wilson is an Anglo-American-Nigerian novelist, short story writer, essayist, poet, playwright, critic, and educator. He grew up in the UK and has lived in eleven countries. His work has been translated into a dozen languages, and his books have sold over a million copies. For more information about JJ

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Tobias S. Buckell: Called “violent, poetic and compulsively readable” by Maclean’s, science fiction author Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times Bestselling writer and World Fantasy Award winner born in the Caribbean. He grew up in Grenada and spent time in the British and US Virgin Islands, and the islands he lived on influence much of his work. For information about Tobias

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Susan Conley is the award-winning author of five critically-acclaimed books, including her newest, best-selling novel Landslide, a New York Times “Editor’s Choice,” a TODAY Show “Best Summer Read,” a Vanity Fair “Book We Can’t Stop Thinking About,” and a New York Times Paperback Row Pick for best “Six New Paperbacks.” It was also chosen as a “Best Book” by Good Morning America, The New York Post, Medium, Bustle, Biblio Lifestyle and others, and it was named a Maine NPR “All Books Considered” Bookclub Pick. For more information about Susan

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John Florio is a freelance writer in Brooklyn, NY. His work often examines the intersection of race, politics, history, and sports. As a journalist, John contributes to the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, the Nation, and ESPN. He is also the author of history books for general audiences as well as young readers; his YA book Doomed was named a Best Book of the Year by School Library Journal and the Bank Street Children’s Book Committee, and was cited as a notable social studies book by the Children’s Book Council. For more information about John

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Alex Jennings is a writer/editor/teacher/poet living in Baton Rouge. His writing has appeared in podcastle, The Peauxdunque Review, Obsidian Lit, the Locus-Award-winning Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler, and in numerous anthologies, including New Suns: Speculative Fiction by People of Color, New Suns 2, and Africa Risen. For more information about Alex

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Myronn Hardy is the author of Aurora Americana (Princeton University Press, 2023); Radioactive Starlings (Princeton University Press, 2017); Kingdom (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2015); Catastrophic Bliss (Bucknell University Press, 2012), winner of the Griot-Stadler Prize for Poetry; The Headless Saints (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2008), winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and Approaching the Center (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2001), winner of the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. 

The recipient of a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship, Hardy lives in Maine. For more information about Myronn

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Darlene R. Taylor: explores kinship, place, and history in fiction and visual art. She utilizes collage and silhouette to piece together half-told stories. Her practice centers on remembering histories of everyday Black women. She comes from a family of makers and learned dressmaking and needlework from the women in my family.  For more information about Darlene

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Daily Schedule (coming soon!)

Writing Workshops Classes:

Generative Workshop: Writing Sacred Ground

Join facilitators, historian Merita McKenzie and author and visual artist, Darlene R. Taylor, for an immersive creative writing journey.

Through prompts, participants will explore the concept of refuge and the enduring power of place. Whether responding to the “Unshakable Refuge” of the past or the “Reclaiming and Transformation” of the present, participants will find a sacred space for creative expression and shared narrative. 

The Stories We Carry

In this hands-on, imaginative workshop, participants will create their own junk journals—one-of-a-kind, handmade books crafted from recycled and upcycled materials. Using found items such as letters, book pages, photographs, invoices, and even everyday “junk mail,” this session invites participants to transform discarded fragments into meaningful, layered works of literary art.

Guided by facilitator Darlene R.Taylor, participants will explore the intersections of storytelling through visual composition—discovering how personal and collective histories can be reassembled into something new and expressive. Through thoughtfully designed prompts, this workshop offers a powerful space to reflect, create, and give voice to stories that might otherwise remain hidden. Participants will find a sacred space for creative expression and shared narrative.

Lodging Information: 

A block of rooms has been reserved at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Portland, ME, for conference participants, offering a convenient and comfortable stay just minutes from the University of Southern Maine, Portland campus, downtown Portland, and the airport. 

Registion

Registration is open for our three-day conference. We encourage early registration to secure your place. Please complete the form by June 1, 2026.

Cost

Cost ($550.00) includes workshops, all programming, plus a catered reception on Friday evening and breakfast and boxed lunches on Saturday and Sunday.

Contact:

Robin Talbot: robin.talbot@maine.edu

Lisa Jones: lisa@blacktravelmaine.com