Biography

 

Marcia F. Brown is the current Poet Laureate for the City of Portland, Maine (2013-2015). She the author of four poetry collections, When We Invented Water (Moon Pie Press 2014); What on Earth (Moon Pie Press 2010); Home to Roost, Paintings and Poems of Belfast, Maine with artist Archie Barnes (Custom Museum Publishing 2007); and The Way Women Walk (Sheltering Pines Press 2006); and the Editor of Port City Poems, Contemporary Poets Celebrate Portland, Maine (Maine Poetry Central 2013). Her poems and reviews have appeared in numerous Maine and national journals and anthologies including Off the Coast, Wolf Moon Journal, Café Review, Bangor Metro, Poet Lore, and Alimentum. Three of her poems have been read by Garrison Keillor on NPR’s Writer’s Almanac. Her poem, Piano Dreams, was included in Keillor’s latest anthology, Good Poems, American Places (Penguin Books, 2011). She has twice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

 

A frequent reader at Maine poetry festivals and events, Marcia has shared her work with audiences at Belfast Poetry Festival, The Harlow Gallery in Hallowell, UMA’s Plunkett Festival, the Lowry’s Lodge poetry series, and Longfellow Days celebrations at The Curtis Library, Brunswick, among many others. She has been a member of the traveling multi-genre reading group, Three Genres in the Rain, who offer free readings to communities to benefit local libraries and other nonprofit organizations, including libraries in Lubec, ME, Hampden, ME, Gettysburg, PA, Cape Elizabeth, ME, and at the Cup & Pen Series in New York City. She is certified by the Amherst Writers and Artists Institute (AWAI) as a Leader of Writing Workshops for Underserved Populations, and has led free poetry writing workshops at a southern Maine senior citizens housing complex. 

 

In 2011 Marcia and award-winning essayist, Penelope Ann Schwartz, launched the Local Writers at The Local Buzz monthly reading series that showcases area writers of fiction, nonfiction and poetry at The Local Buzz café and wine bar in Cape Elizabeth, which has built a loyal audience following in its first three years of events.Born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, Marcia moved to Maine in 1984 after working in New York City’s film and television industry as a story editor; and spent many years as a Portland-based real estate professional specializing in affordable housing development and finance throughout the U.S. She is a graduate of Dana Hall School, Wellesley, MA and of Smith College, Northampton, MA. She is a proud graduate of the 2004 Inaugural class of the University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast MFA Creative Writing Program with a concentration in poetry. Marcia lives in Cape Elizabeth, ME with her husband and an assortment of agreeable friends adopted from the Maine Society for the Protection of Animals.

Publications

 

• When We Invented Water (Moon Pie Press, 2014)

• Port City Poems Anthology, edited by Marcia F. Brown (Maine Poetry Central: Portland, ME, 2013)

• What on Earth (Moon Pie Press, 2010)

• Home to Roost, Paintings and Poems of Belfast, Maine  with Artist Archie Barnes (Custom Museum Publishing, 2007)

• The Way Women Walk (Sheltering Pines Press, 2006)