Local writers make collective effort to build Bangor-area literary scene (Bangor Daily News)

In 2013, Michele Christle and Meghan Dowling were newly settled in Greater Bangor, both teaching adjunct English classes at the University of Maine and at Husson University, respectively, and both novelists and short story writers. Naturally, they became friends.

Christle, who went to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Dowling, who attended UMaine for her MA and then the University of Denver in Colorado for her Ph.D., were missing the literary scenes Denver and Amherst supported.

Bangor has grown leaps and bounds in recent years in terms of the number of arts and cultural events happening in the city and UMaine has had longstanding literary programming with the New Writing Series, but Christle and Dowling wanted more. So, with the help of several other area writers and educators, they decided to make their own literary scene.

While the Norumbega Collective is no longer active, we’re grateful to Emily Burnham of the Bangor Daily News for this piece.