Maine Women Writers Collection

05/05/2026

MWWC Celebrates New Penny Armstrong Collection for International Day of the Midwife

In honor of 2026 International Day of the Midwife on May 5, we are excited to announce the recent acquisition of the Penny Armstrong Papers at the Maine Women Writers Collection. Penny Armstrong, CNM, MSN is the author, with Sheryl Feldman, of "A Midwife’s Story: Life, Love and Birth among the Amish" (1986) and "A Wise Birth: Bringing Together the Best of Natural Childbirth and Modern Medicine" (1990), and the coeditor of "A Life in Medicine: A Literary Anthology" (2001). For eleven years, Armstrong was immersed in the Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Amish and Mennonite communities, practicing as a nurse midwife; throughout her career, she has attended some 1,400 births, in homes, birth centers, and hospitals.

Through her nurse midwifery, her writing, her volunteer work, and her educational roles at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing, Case Western Reserve University, the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Medicine (now Frontier Nursing University), and the UNE College of Osteopathic Medicine, she has advocated for improvements in the ways people give birth and has sought to provide support and information for those seeking greater autonomy in their birthing experience.

You can learn more about Armstrong and about the materials in her archival collection here: bit.ly/4uuys7C

03/26/2026

Join us at MWWC tonight!

"15 MINUTES OF INFAMY: Ill-behaved Women and the Making of History"

Thursday, March 26th, 5–6:30 p.m.
(Refreshments at 4:30 p.m.)

Maine Women Writers Collection
UNE, Josephine S. Abplanalp ’45 Library
716 Stevens Ave, Portland, ME 04103
In person only. Free and open to the public

Join Elizabeth DeWolfe, Ph.D., professor of history at UNE and co-founder of the Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies Program, for a talk exploring the stories of women who history tried to forget.

If “well-behaved women seldom make history,” ill-behaved women certainly dominated the headlines — branded as passive, irrational, or depraved, their lives reduced to cautionary tales. Drawing on 30 years of archival research, including her recent book, Alias Agnes: The Notorious Tale of a Gilded Age Spy, DeWolfe explores how women misrepresented in the historical record can be recentered to tell a more inclusive and accurate story of the past.

UNE Library Services University of New England - Alumni

03/25/2026

Thank you to everyone who made a gift to the Donna M. Loring Lecture Series for UNE Giving Day! Your support fosters meaningful conversations, reflection, and learning across our campus community!

University of New England - Alumni UNE Library Services

03/24/2026

Today is UNE Giving Day!

For 17 years, Donna M. Loring has partnered with the Maine Women Writers Collection to bring Indigenous writers, scholars, artists, and public servants to UNE to talk to our students and our community about issues that matter.

Your gift will support future Donna M. Loring Lecture experiences: alumni.une.edu/dlls2026

Pick a challenge. Make a gift. Do your part.
University of New England - Alumni UNE Library Services

03/23/2026

For 17 years, the MWWC has been hosting the Donna M. Loring Lecture Series, a space for education, dialogue, and reflection on issues such as Indigenous rights, environmental advocacy, civil rights, social justice, and human rights.

Will you give a little to help support this work?

We are excited to be participating in UNE’s Giving Day Challenge on March 24th, a short burst of fundraising toward a tangible goal. We are hoping to raise $7,500 toward the Loring Lecture that will fund special enhancements to this year’s lecture, which will feature Wolastoqey (Maliseet) poet Mihku Paul.

The Loring Lectures allow our community, and especially our students, to learn from Indigenous writers, scholars, artists, and public servants whom they might never otherwise have encountered, such as in the image featured here, where students got to interact with Morgan Talty after his reading from "Night of the Living Rez." We believe this kind of beyond-the-classroom learning is an essential part of our students' education, and we would like to be able to offer students more ways to experience the Loring Lecture speakers when they come to campus.

Your Giving Day gift can help make that happen! Please visit this link, and thank you: alumni.une.edu/dlls2026

Pick a challenge. Make a gift. Do your part.

University of New England - Alumni UNE Library Services

03/20/2026

03/19/2026

Students in UNE Prof. Joby DeCoster's American Indian History and Culture course recently watched a recording of a Donna M. Loring Lecture to learn how Wabanaki basketmakers are preserving this important art form despite threats to the ash tree traditionally used for basketry. Watch the recording here: https://bit.ly/40CCgXF

Your gift will support future Donna M. Loring Lecture experiences: alumni.une.edu/dlls2026

Pick a challenge. Make a gift. Do your part.
University of New England - Alumni UNE Library Services

03/19/2026

Your gift matters. Autumn ’26 shares how the Donna M. Loring Lecture Series has enriched her UNE experience and has brightened the path forward in preserving and adapting Maine’s rich Native cultures through change.

Give to support future Donna Loring Lecture experiences: alumni.une.edu/dlls2026

UNE Library Services Maine Women Writers Collection

03/17/2026

UNE students had front-row seats for Jennifer Neptune's and Betsy Richards's standing-room-only presentations about their work directing museums that preserve and share Wabanaki cultural heritage. Supporting our Donna Loring Lecture Giving Day Challenge will create extended opportunities for students to learn from Loring Lecture speakers.

Please consider giving to support future Donna M. Loring Lecture experiences: alumni.une.edu/dlls2026

Pick a challenge. Make a gift. Do your part.
University of New England - Alumni UNE Library Services

03/13/2026

UNE students loved meeting Morgan Talty after his reading from "Night of the Living Rez" in 2024. Supporting our Donna Loring Lecture Giving Day Challenge will create extended opportunities for students to talk with, and learn from, Loring Lecture speakers.

Please consider giving to support future Donna M. Loring Lecture experiences: alumni.une.edu/dlls2026

Pick a challenge. Make a gift. Do your part.
University of New England - Alumni UNE Library Services

11/12/2025

We are grateful for the work of Jennifer Sapiel Neptune and all culture keepers who preserve, amplify, and connect stories in and of the Dawnland.

To celebrate Native American Heritage Month, this year we are featuring some of the amazing stories and contributions of Wabanaki citizens. Jennifer Sapiel Neptune (Penobscot Nation) is an artist and a culture keeper creating basketry, beadwork, and porcupine quill jewelry grounded in Penobscot traditions. For the past 10 years she’s served as director of the Penobscot Nation Museum on Indian Island, where artifacts telling the story of the rich Penobscot cultural heritage are housed in the former Indian Agent headquarters.

Earlier this year, Neptune and the museum received a one-time Anonymous Was a Woman Environmental Art grant to reclaim the building’s former colonial history and transform it as a “site of cultural continuance.” Working with co-recipient Erin Hutton she will collaborate with community members, elders, and artists to develop new exhibits, educational programs and interpretive materials that honor the ecological, cultural, and historical continuance of the Penobscot Nation, blending traditional knowledge with innovative design.

“All those objects have stories and relationships to each other,” she said in last month’s Donna M. Loring Lecture Series talk at University of New England. “Those objects are still in their community and able to establish relationships in present times.”

Neptune taught herself how to bead by studying traditional Wabanaki patterns. Her bead work emphasizes precise, intricate designs such as the three-leaf botanical formation associated with healing. “So much of our art is in our culture and traditions and stories,” she notes. “Sometimes I imagine these ‘old bead-workers’ spirits hovering around while I work, guiding my hands.” She notes these spirits are invoked by “respectfully” asking.

Increasingly, her museum work involves collaboration with other institutions such as the Maine Historical Society and Maine History Museum, with one example being the successful joint purchase of a rare ancestral Penobscot chief’s collar in an auction. “When we work together, when we build these relationships together, when we collaborate, when we’re open, when we trust, when we take chances with each other, it can lead to these amazing things,” she said. “That’s one example that things are changing and continuing to get better.”