ZOOM only this evening:

CAMDEN — January 16 is the kick off for a renewed Winter Speaker Series of the Camden-Rockport Historical Society in cooperation with the Camden Public Library. The original winter series had been suspended due to Covid. Talks will be held on either Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. or Sunday afternoons at 2 p.m.

January's illustrated presentation, at 6 p.m., by Maine author Irene Drago on "How to Weave Maine's Shipbuilding into Compelling Fiction," will reference Camden's Holly Bean Shipyard. This is a hybrid event. Call the Camden Public Library, 236-2257,  or email jsagaser@librarycamden.org to get a Zoom link.

Born in the shadow of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Irene M. Drago developed a keen interest in every kind of watercraft at an early age. Before moving to Maine, she worked for the Defense Department as a Russian analyst, earned a Master of Arts degree in Spanish language and literature, and taught at the high school and college level.

Drago’s novel, Lavinia Wren and the Sailmakers, pulls the thread of love, not war, through history. Orphaned by the Civil War, Vinnie finds a home in Thomaston, Maine, and grows up with a view of the Georges River, busy shipyards, and the forbidding wall of a prison. In 1865, on the verge of turning thirteen, she meets the son of a shipbuilder, two young sailors, and the raven-haired daughter of a ship carver. For the next sixty years, their lives remain entwined through joy and sorrow as schooners replace square-rigs, German U-boats appear off the coast, horse drawn carriages give way to automobiles, and airplanes take flight.

If Drago isn’t penning a story, you’re apt to find her giving a shipyard tour at Maine Maritime Museum or leading a creative writing workshop, according to Drago, in a news release. But in fair weather, there’s a good chance you’ll find her piloting her Maritime Skiff on Casco Bay.

 
In February (date TBA), Dr. Kate McMahon, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture at the Smithsonian, will speak about the early Peterborough Community in Warren Maine.
 
March 26 will feature Charles Lagerbom, Maine's Marine Historian, speaking about the "USS Maine: History, Life, Death and Remembrance of the ship that took a nation to war."

The last speaker of the series is filmmaker Daniel Lambert speaking about "Maine at Gettysburg" on April 21.

For more information contact the Historical Society at 236-2257 or Julia Sagaser at CPL, 236-3440.