Donate to WERU Today!Andree Bella | Reader/Writer
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What’s the Word on Maine Street? 1/17/26
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 1/17/26: Porcupine, Wise Woman of the Woods
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 1/16/26: Constitutional Crisis: Can Democracy Survive Billionaire Economics?
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:
We’ll talk about how wealth and income inequality undermine democracy. Does extreme income inequality lead to right wing authoritarianism? How does that work? Is that playing out in the U.S. right now? In Maine?
Guest/s:
Garrett Martin, President & CEO, Maine Center for Economic Policy
Susan Stokes, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago. She is the author of the new book, The Backsliders: Why Leaders Undermine Their Own Democracies | Princeton University Press, September 2025
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 1/16/26: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
Suzanne Kelly joins us with news about Faith Linking in Action’s 4th annual MLK celebration, coming up on Sunday, January 18th at 3pm at the First United Methodist Church, 703 Essex Street, Bangor Reggie Harris will perform, tell stories and lead sing-a-longs, and Robert Shetterly will be there with some of the portraits from his Americans Who Tell the Truth series.
Maine Immigrant Rights Coalition Resource Hub Their hotline is 207-544-9989 Photos and videos can be sent to them at [email protected]
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-
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Creative Maine 1/15/26: Maine Photographers
Producer/host: Adina Salmansohn
Other credits: Theme music written and performed by Ariel Chapman.
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.
The episode covers Maine photographers past and present. Listeners will learn about wildlife photography, train photography, and historic pictures.
Guest/s:
Chris L’Abbe, Wildlife photographer @wildlife_by_chris
Joey Kelley, Train photographer www.joeykelleyphoto.com/
Kevin Johnson, Photo Archivist, Penobscot Marine Museum penobscotmarinemuseum.org/
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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Climate & Community 1/15/26: Designing the Future with Isidora Munoz (Part 2)
Host: Wilson Haims
This week: Climate and Community continues the conversation with Isi Munoz, learning more about the structure of the Designing the Future Program and why Isi believes community-driven climate action is essential.
About the Host:
Wilson Haims is from Portland, Maine and earned her bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies from Wellesley College in 2023. Upon graduating, Wilson contributed to climate and conservation-related field work, policy and community engagement work in New England and the Pacific Northwest. Now, Wilson is the Manager of Community Engagement and Resilience at A Climate to Thrive and spends her time hiking, running, making art and cooking on Mount Desert Island.
Johannah, Beth, Wilson, Gus, Alison and Angie are the team at A Climate to Thrive, a nonprofit working to build a model of community-driven, solutions-focused climate action. Since its origins around a potluck table as concerned neighbors gathered to take action on climate change, A Climate to Thrive, or ACTT, has been supporting solutions on Mount Desert Island and beyond since 2016. Learn more at www.aclimatetothrive.org.
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Around Town 1/15/26: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
US – El Salvador Sister Cities statement on Trump’s actions in Venezuela
Applications are now open for Maine Initiative’s 2026 Immigrant-Led Organizations Fund
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-
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