WERU’S Writers Forum hosted by Dr. Betty Parker Duff began 2006 with the authors who were the inspiration for the program. They are all members of the Deer Isle Morning Writers Group and contributors to the first edition of the Eggemoggin Reach Review.
The February 9 program will feature Diane Berlew, Gayle Hadley and Norma Sheard.
Diane Berlew started writing seriously after attending a Deer Isle Writers’ Group meeting. She has taught preschool and worked as a counselor for emotionally disturbed children. She ran a bed and breakfast in Stonington, where she has lived for 25 years. She particularly enjoys writing stories for children based on ones told to her by her father and for adults based on an active fantasy life. She has also been a cartoonist, illustrating three books and numerous life situations.
Gayle Ashburn Hadley pursued her writing habit while teachin in or directing programs fo inner city low-income children. She now reside and writes on Deer Isle. Excerpts from her novel, Eternal Vigilance, were read at the 2003 Stonecoast Writers Conference and published in the Eggemoggin Reach Review. Her humorous essay, Insectomania, appeared in The Working Waterfront.
Norma Vorhees Sheard received a New Jersey State Council of the Arts Poetry Fellowship in 1989 before moving permanently to Maine. She was awarded a poetry residency at the Millay Colony in Austerlitz, New York in 2004. Her poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies including New York Quarterly, Nimrod and Puckerbrush. Her recent work includes a poem in the first issue of the Bangor Metro published in June of 2005.