Today we’re celebrating National Library Week by sharing some of our photos, and adventures, of events in Maine libraries. As our librarians know, libraries are writers’ favorite places, and we’ve been lucky enough to be invited to many of them to speak to readers about our writing, our process, and where we get our ideas. In the past few years, we’ve enjoyed presenting an audience participation event called “Making a Mystery” where a panel of writers from different corners of the mystery field use audience suggestions for character’s names, occupations, motives, weapons, and location of the crime to compose a mystery on the fly.

If we haven’t been to your library yet, why not? We can zoom. And hopefully, by summer, we’ll be able to meet again in person.

Happy National Library Week!

John Clark, Vaughn Hardacker, Maureen MIlliken and Brenda Buchanan talk mysteries, Maine and other stuff at the Thompson Library in Dover-Foxcroft July 14. (Diane Kenty picture)

Celebrating Carol Briggs retirement at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick

Dick Cass

Kate Flora, Barbara Ross and Brenda Buchanan did a joint panel at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick in June, 2015.

Maureen Milliken at Guilford Library author fair in 2016

Brenda Buchanan, Kate Flora, Gerry Boyle and Lynne Raimondo, caught in the glow of late afternoon sunlight during a panel discussion during a Murder by the Book conference at the Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor. Yes, those are bloody handprints on the window. The Jesup folks really get into the spirit of the event.

Maureen Milliken, my first talk in my hometown Belgrade Public Library in 2016.

Brenda Buchanan reading at the Popham Beach Library 2017

Dick and Ann Cass warm up the crowd before an August 2019 event at the Rangeley Public Library.

Murder by the Book, Jesup Library in Bar Harbor, 2016

Porter Memorial Library in Machias

Maine’s libraries are stunning spaces. It’s a pleasure to visit them and explore their nooks and crannies.

Here are photos of a few of those that have hosted Maine Crime Writers in recent years.

The wonderful Jesup Memorial Library in Bar Harbor, which each fall hosts a weekend-long crime writers conference called Murder By The Book.

The stacks at Winter Harbor’s magnificent library, a former Unitarian chapel.

The new library on Swan’s Island, which replaced a library that burned to the ground in the summer of 2008 after being hit by a bolt of lightning.

The historic Walker Memorial Library in Westbrook.

Brooklin’s stately Friend Memorial Library.

El;well Hall houses a library managed as a labor of love by committed volunteers on Great Diamond Island.

Most every Library has an associated group of volunteers, usually called the Friends of the Library.  They organize events, do outreach, sponsor additional programming for children and elders and raise money to supplement municipal appropriations.  Readers interested in getting involved in a community activity will look far to find a more welcoming group.

Maggie Robinson, Wanda Ann Thomas, and Michelle Libby at the Windham Public Library