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Award-winning writer and interdisciplinary artist Summer J. Hart will deliver a poetry reading and artist process talk weaving together recent works on grief, memory-mapping, and the passage of time. A book signing for her new book of poetry What Came Down in the Smoke will follow the reading and lecture. Join us on Thursday, October 8th, from 5pm-7pm at the McGoldrick Center Salons (35 Bedford St., 2nd Floor) on the University of Southern Maine Portland Campus. This event is being co-presented by the 2026 Maine Lit Fest. 

Author Bio: Summer J. Hart is an interdisciplinary artist and writer from Maine living in the Hudson Valley, New York. She is the author of two books of poetry: Boomhouse (2023, The 3rd Thing Press), which won the 2024 Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize, and What Came Down in the Smoke (2026, JackLeg Press). She is a 2023 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Poetry and the 2022 Hellen Ingram Plummer Fellow at MacDowell. Her creative work has been supported by Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and Vermont Studio Center. Her writing appears in Best Small Fictions 2023 (Alternating Current Press); Mothman Was Here: Tales of the Uncanny (Tenpenny Books, 2024); Allium; Ballast; Bedfellows, Electric Literature, Grist, Hypertext Review, Heavy Feather Review, North American Review, Tyger Quarterly, Wildroof Journal, and elsewhere. Her mixed-media artworks have been featured in exhibitions across the United States including SPRING/BREAK NYC, Pen + Brush, The Parsonage, the Maine State House Gallery, Gitana Rosa Gallery, LeMieux Galleries, and Kasia Kay Art Projects. She has work in the permanent collections of The University of Hartford and the University of Southern Maine. Summer is an enrolled member of the Listuguj Mi’gmaq First Nation.

What: What Came Down in the Smoke: The 2026 Peggy L. Osher Visiting Artist Fellow Lecture with Summer J. Hart
Where: McGoldrick Center Salons (35 Bedford Street, 2nd Floor) on the University of Southern Maine Portland Campus
When: Thursday, October 8th, 2026
5-5:30pm: Reception; 5:30pm-7pm: Lecture, Reading, and Q&A, followed by a book signing
Cost: Free

Parking and Public Transport:
Parking on the University of Southern Maine (USM) Portland campus is available for $4.15 per hour in Garages 1 and 2. Please visit the USM digital parking interface to reserve your parking ahead of time. Greater Portland Metro (opens in a new tab) bus lines #4 and the Husky line pickup and drop-off about a four-minute walk from the entrance of the Glickman Family Library. One-way rides on the Greater Portland Metro bus are $2.25 each way.

What Came Down in the Smoke

The 2026 Peggy L. Osher Visiting Artist Fellow Lecture with Summer J. Hart

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