Donate to WERU Today!CJ Kenna | Producer + Writer/Reader
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What’s the Word on Maine Street? 12/13/25
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 12/13/25: The Holly and the Mistletoe
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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Around Town 12/12/25: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
A special City Council Workshop will be held this Friday, Dec. 12, beginning at 9 a.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall for the purpose of continuing discussions about the homeless encampment along the rail lines near Penobscot Plaza. (Source: City of Bangor) Today we hear from a resident of the encampment who spoke at a Bangor City Council meeting earlier this week.
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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Common Ground Radio 12/11/25: Gardener to Gardener
Host: Holli Cederholm
Common Ground Radio is an hour-long discussion of local food and organic agriculture with people here in the state of Maine and beyond.
This month:
This episode of Common Ground Radio goes behind the scenes of Gardener to Gardener, a new conference for gardeners to learn from one another. Hosted by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association, the inaugural event will take place on February 8 in Portland, Maine. It is an exciting opportunity for gardeners of all experience levels to connect with other growers, as well as university faculty, agricultural scientists, and service providers around a range of gardening topics. We also dive a bit deeper into two topics that will be covered at the conference, Planning & Mapping Your Garden, and Soil Health 101.
List of subjects:
– MOFGA’s Gardener to Gardener Conference
– Gardening
– Resources for organic gardening
– Planning and mapping your garden
– Soil health 101
Guest/s:
Madi Whaley, MOFGA’s educational programs coordinator.
Rebecca Long, coordinator of Horticulture Training Programs for the University of Maine Cooperative Extension.
Ivonne Vazquez, the owner/grower at Bas Rouge Farm & Forge, a native plant nursery.
FMI-
– Gardener to Gardener — mofga.org/event-calendar/gardener-to-gardener-2026
– Climate Change & the Garden: Resources — mofga.org/trainings/gardening/climate-change-gardening-resources
– Beginning Gardener Resources — mofga.org/trainings/gardening/beginning-gardener-resources
– Bas Rouge Farm & Forge Gardening Classes — basrougefarm.com/gardening-classes
– Understanding Astronomy — physics.weber.edu/schroeder/ua/sunandseasons.html
– Maine Home Garden News — extension.umaine.edu/gardening/maine-home-garden-news
– Cooperative Extension Garden & Yard — extension.umaine.edu/gardening
About the hosts:
Holli Cederholm has been involved in organic agriculture since 2005 when she first apprenticed on a small farm. She has worked on organic farms in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Scotland and Italy and, in 2010, founded a small farm focused on celebrating open-pollinated and heirloom vegetables. As the former manager of a national nonprofit dedicated to organic seed growers, she authored a peer-reviewed handbook on GMO avoidance strategies for seed growers. Holli has also been a steward at Forest Farm, the iconic homestead of “The Good Life” authors Helen and Scott Nearing; a host of “The Farm Report” on Heritage Radio Network; and a lo0ng-time contributor for The Maine Organic Farmer & Gardener, which she now edits in her role as content creator and editor at MOFGA.
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Around Town 12/11/25: Local News, Culture and Events
Host/Producer: Amy Browne
Beth C. Wright Cancer Resource Center’s annual Beth’s Trees for HOPE Festival, Friday, December 13th, 9:00 AM – 7:00 PM, and Saturday, December 14th 9:00 AM – 2:00 PM at the Maine Coast Mall, Ellsworth, ME
Admission: Free
The Haystack Mountain School of Crafts winter series kicks off with an Open House on Saturday, December 13, from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. Join them to learn more about the Fab Lab and Winter Programs over refreshments and festive crafts at this free, family-friendly event, at Haystack’s Center for Community Programs at 22 Church Street, Deer Isle village
In Belfast, the Colonial Theatre’s free family matinee series continues Saturday at 1pm with the movie Elf — Buddy’s Sing and Cheer Along Edition. Tickets are free, but it is recommended that you reserve your seats in advance and arrive on time so you don’t lose your seat.
Opera House Arts presents A Christmas Carol Community Reading – Sunday, Dec. 14 from 2pm-6pm at the Stonington Opera House
Tuba Christmas at 1pm and Bangor Band’s annual “Sounds of the Season” concert, with pieces celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the winter season, ending with a Christmas sing-along, at 2pm at Peakes Auditorium at Bangor High School on Sunday.
Participation in Tuba Christmas is open to any musician who plays tuba, euphonium, baritone horn, or other tuba-like instrument. Those who wish to participate, should arrive at Peakes Auditorium at Bangor High School at 9:30 A.M. to check in and prepare for a 10:00 rehearsal. There is a $10 fee to participate, and all participants will receive a Tuba Christmas button.
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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Talk of the Towns 12/10/25: Restorative Justice and Restorative Practice
Producer/Hosts: Ron Beard and Liz Graves
College of the Atlantic provides help with production. Engineering by Joel Mann of WERU Community Radio.
Theme music for Talk of the Towns Theme is a medley from Coronach, on a Balnain House Highland Music recording.
Talk of the Towns: Local Community concerns and opportunities
This month:
What is the work of Downeast Restorative Justice?
How does restorative justice connect to the criminal justice system to bring together those who have caused harm with those who have been harmed?
What is the broader set of restorative practices that underpin the work of Downeast Restorative Justice to build community connections and resilience?
What might a community circle look like… how is it convened, what are its intentions, what values does it demonstrate?
How might listeners learn more about training opportunities to build skills that support restorative justice and, more broadly, restorative practice?
Guest/s:
Kayla Gagnon, Downeast Restorative Justice Youth and Community Coordinator
Leslie Ross, Downeast Restorative Justice Program and Case Coordinator
FMI:
downeastrestorativejustice.org
About the hosts:
Ron Beard is producer and host of Talk of the Towns, which first aired on WERU in 1993 as part of his community building work as an Extension professor with University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Sea Grant. He took all the journalism courses he could fit in while an undergraduate student in wildlife management and served as an intern with Maine Public Television nightly newscast in the early 1970s. Ron is an adjunct faculty member at College of the Atlantic, teaching courses on community development. Ron served on the Bar Harbor Town Council for six years and is currently board chair for the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, where he has lived since 1975. Look for him on the Allagash River in June, and whenever he can get away, in the highlands of Scotland where he was fortunate to spend two sabbaticals.
Liz Graves joined Talk of the Towns as co-producer and co-host in July 2022, having long admired public affairs programming on WERU and dreamed of getting involved in community radio. She works as the Town Clerk for the Town of Bar Harbor, and is a former editor of the Mount Desert Islander weekly newspaper. Liz grew up in California and came to Maine as a schooner sailor.
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World Ocean Radio 12/10/25: State of the Ocean Report 2025
Host: Peter Neill
Producer: Trisha Badger
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
At the end of each year, W2O founder and host of World Ocean Radio Peter Neill sets out to report on the state of the ocean. This year his source of support for the annual digest is a report in BioScience 2025 entitled “The 2025 State of the Climate Report: A Planet on the Brink.” The report addresses population growth, consumption, land use, forestation, fire, greenhouse gases, temperature, ocean warming, sea level rise, pH, climate change, extreme weather, risks to biodiversity, ocean circulation, fresh water, mitigation strategies, and social tipping points.
WORLD OCEAN RADIO
5-minute weekly insights dive into ocean science, advocacy and education hosted by Peter Neill, lifelong ocean advocate and maritime expert. A catalog of more than 730 episodes offering perspectives on global ocean issues and solutions, and celebrating exemplary projects. Available for RSS feed and broadcast by college and community radio stations worldwide via Exchange.prx.org and Audioport.org. Visit WorldOceanObservatory.org for the full catalog, searchable by theme.
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