Portland Public Library hosts nationally touring authors at the Spotlight Series.  Authors talk about newly released work followed by audience Q&A and a book signing.  The series is co-hosted by Portland Public Library and sponsored by the Press Hotel and Bangor Savings Bank.

The Portland Poet Laureate is an honorary position given every 2-3 years to a resident of the Greater Portland area who is both an accomplished poet and an excellent ambassador within the community. Portland’s current poet laureate is Gibson Fay-LeBlanc. Join us for the inauguration of our new poet laureate at 5:30pm on Tuesday, June 26th, in our Rines Auditorium!

Calling all adventurists, all travelers, all writers! Portland Public Library is currently seeking short fiction and poetry submissions with a travel theme for a public reading on June 14th from 6-7pm.

Join one of our ongoing book groups at our branches, or let us help your book group with suggestions for what to read, book sets you can borrow, advice on book group strategy, and extra copies to supply you.

Our Literary Lunch Series is held at noon the last Wednesday of each month. We host New England authors with recently-released work in conversation with a literary friend, colleague or critic. Bring your lunch and join us!

The first annual Portland Public Library Reading Challenge is here! We have selected 24 book prompts and we challenge you to read one book from each category throughout the year. That’s just two books a month – will you accept the challenge?

Calling all writers! Are you looking for someone to critique your work? Interested in meeting other writers? Searching for inspiration and collaboration? Meet up with like-minded locals at Portland Public Library to discuss authors and ideas and listen to and inspire one another!

Greater Portland’s only writing group dedicated to journal and memoir writing! Journalists are encouraged to produce creative, reflective writing through the use of autobiographic and historic elements in PPL’s collections, including memoirs, archives, journalism, letter correspondence, & the history of writing in material culture.

Celebrating the Freedom to Read
As books continue to be challenged, restricted and banned at schools and libraries across the country, we pause to think about censorship and celebrate our freedom to read and openly access information.