What’s the Word on Maine Street? 3/21/26

What’s the Word on Maine Street?, hosted by Sarah Pebworth, is a weekly short feature Saturdays at 9:30am looking at local literary and visual arts events and offerings!

About the host:
Sarah Pebworth leads the steering committee for Word—a Blue Hill Literary Arts Festival, founded in 2017 and held each October. She serves on the boards of the Cultural Alliance of Maine and Lawrence Family Fitness Center YMCA. Since February 2023 Sarah has written “Shared Seas and Common Grounds,” a column published in the Penobscot Bay Press’s Weekly Packet. She and her wife Julie Jo Fehrle live in Blue Hill.

Theme music: Ross Gallagher is a bassist who grew up in East Blue Hill, ME, and currently lives between Bath, ME and Brooklyn, NY, where he works with a wide variety of musical artists. Infinite Blues is a cut from his recently released neon night, an excursion into an ambient/electronic musical world built around rhythmic bass ostinatos, clouds of processed looping electronic atmospheres, and melody. By turns both subtle and unapologetically noisy, the songs are a collection of luminous constellations, roved between by a band of texturally minded instrumental improvisers.

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Earthwise 3/21/26: A Biography of Birch Trees

Producer/Host: Anu Dudley

About the host: Rev. Dr. Anu Dudley is an ordained Pagan minister and a retired history professor. She continues to teach classes, including the three-year ordination curriculum at the Temple of the Feminine Divine, and others such as History of the Goddess, Paganism 101, Ethical Magic, and Introduction to the Runes. Currently she is writing a book about how to cast the runes using their original Goddess meanings. She lives in the woods off-grid in a small homesteading community in Central Maine.

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Democracy Forum 3/20/26: Constitutional Crisis: All Hands on Deck to Protect Our Elections

Host: Ann Luther, League of Women Voters of Maine
Production Assistance: Linda Washburn, Joel Mann

Democracy Forum: Participatory Democracy, encouraging citizens to take an active role in government and politics.

This month:
Maine has some of the best-run, highest-turnout elections in the country. We want to hold onto that, so we’re taking election threats seriously. We’ll talk about how elections work now and why we should be confident in our elections. But we’ll also talk about what can go wrong and how we can prepare.

Guest/s:
Shenna Bellows, Maine Secretary of State.
Patti DuBois, City Clerk, Waterville, Maine.
Archon Fung, Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, and the Winthrop Laflin McCormack Professor of Citizenship and Self-Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.

To learn more about this topic:
Visit LWVME.org

About the host:
Ann Luther currently serves as Treasurer of the League of Women Voters of Maine and leads the LWVME Advocacy Team. She served as President of LWVME from 2003 to 2007 and as co-president from 2007-2009.

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Around Town 3/20/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

The 59th annual Kenduskeag Stream Canoe Race

Midcoast Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build 2026.

and Maine headlines from 50 years ago today!

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

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Creative Maine 3/19/26: Craftivism

Producer/host: Adina Salmansohn
Other credits: Theme music written and performed by Ariel Chapman.

A monthly show exploring Maine‘s culture, art and crafts that enrich our lives and bring us joy.

We hear voices of local craftivists who extend their voice through their making.

Guest/s:
Victor Mazza, co-owner of Blood Moon Studio Market and designer of the official Searsport tartan.
[email protected]

Conni Whittaker, Textile artist

Amy Tingle, Program Director of Waterfall Arts
[email protected]
waterfallarts.org

Grace and Jackie from Stitch Social

Jackie Ottino, Owner of Heavenly Yarns
[email protected]
heavenlyyarns.com

About the Host:
Adina Salmansohn started learning to play the trombone at the age of 8.  Her undergraduate years were at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Robert F. Boyd of the Cleveland Orchestra.  After returning to her native New York, she played freelance in the NY Metro area, including multiple orchestras, big bands, and a 17 year stint with The Soundview Brass Quintet, which she founded in 1980. In addition, she had a busy career as an arts administrator, directing and teaching in Community Arts schools, light opera companies, and season programming for other non-profit organizations. Adina founded the Hudson School of Creative Arts in inner-city Yonkers, NY.

After her second child was born, she returned to school, and earned a degree in Culinary Arts from the Culinary Institute of America. Her family then moved to the Chicagoland area, where she became Principal Trombone of the Skokie Valley Symphony Orchestra, and also served as a board member and Personnel Manager for many years.  In that time, she also taught Culinary Arts in high school.  She earned a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies from Northern Illinois University in 2018. Upon retirement, she and her husband moved to Orland, Maine; she came out of retirement to teach in the JMG program. She performs with the Bangor Band, where she has been a Board Member at Large for four years, and is a member of a trombone quartet based at The University of Maine, The Bear Bones.

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Around Town 3/19/26: Local News, Culture and Events

Host/Producer: Amy Browne

Wabanaki Alliance 2026 Maine Gubernatorial Forum at Community Resource Center in Houlton, tonight at 6:00 PM, at the Houlton Band of Maliseet Community Resource Center, 654 North St, Houlton

The Ellsworth Public Library (EPL) invites gardeners and plant lovers of all ages to its third annual Seed Swap on Saturday, March 21, 2026, from 10 AM – 1 PM. This free event is inspired by the library’s Seed Library initiative.

About the host:
Amy Browne started out at WERU as a volunteer news & public affairs producer in 2000, co-hosting/co-producing RadioActive with Meredith DeFrancesco. She joined the team of Voices producers a few years later, and has been WERU’s News & Public Affairs Manager since January, 2006. In addition to RadioActive, Voices, Maine Currents and Maine: The Way Life Could Be, Amy also produced and hosted the WERU News Report for several years. She has produced segments for national programs including Free Speech Radio News, This Way Out, Making Contact, Workers Independent News, Pacifica PeaceWatch, and Live Wire News, and has contributed to Democracy Now and the WBAI News Report. She is the recipient of the 2014 Excellence in Environmental Journalism Award from the Sierra Club of Maine, and Maine Association of Broadcasters awards for her work in 2017 and 2021.

Theme music: BreakBeat Chemists I, 2015
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License

Podcast: Play in new window | Download