Former lawmaker’s poetry benefits Alzheimer’s
Former Maine Sen. John Benoit has self-published a 20-poem chapbook titled “The Brown Nosed Camel.” His goal is to raise $4,000 for the Maine Alzheimer’s Association.

“I have firsthand knowledge of the significance of the chapter’s support programs for those afflicted with the disease and their caregivers,” he said. “My wife, Judy, has had Alzheimer’s disease for nine years, and the thought of that made me decide to sell 400 of them, for $10 each, and give the proceeds to the Maine chapter.”

To contact Benoit, write P.O. Box 414, Manchester, ME 04351; or e-mail [email protected].

Poet will read from works at Percy’s Burrow
AUBURN — Pearl Tibbetts Sawyer, 87, author of seven published works of poetry since 2002, will read from her latest collection, “Bread,” at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 21, in front of Percy’s Burrow in the Auburn Mall.

“Moving deeper into what is often referred in derision as the ‘golden years,’ I find it most important that I continue to look for the divine in the ordinary, searching through layers of inevitable losses and rediscovering the blessings I still enjoy on this amazing journey,” Sawyer wrote in the forward of “Bread.”

From lingo to lobsters, ‘Maine 101’ has it all
Did you know that Marshall Point, Port Clyde, is the site of the lighthouse Forrest Gump runs to in the movie of the same name?

Or, that at age 12, singer-songerwriter David Mallett held Johnny Cash’s guitar, a beat-up Martin D28, while the star did some last-minute preparations before running onstage to the intro to “Ring of Fire?”

Or, that internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen loves the french fries served at Lily Bistro in Rockland? (The addition of whole garlic cloves makes them especially tasty.)

These and countless other facts are included in Nancy Griffin’s “Maine 101: Everything you wanted to know about Maine and were going to ask anyway.”

The 252-page paperback is jampacked with information broken down into these chapters: state song, timeline, essentials, Mainespeak, place names, natural world, weather, culture, food, economy, then and now, politics, crime and punishment, and Native Americans.

Griffin, from Thomaston, is a former wire service and newspaper reporter and editor. She is now a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines and is editor of the Gulf of Maine Times. She is also the author of a children’s book about the twin Maine inventors, the Stanley Brothers.

Sold for $14.95, “Maine 101” was published by MacIntyre Purcell Publishing Inc. and may be purchased at www.101bookseries.com.

Novel explores secret lives of closeted men
Paul Paré, a resident of Ogunquit and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with ties to Lewiston, has written a book that explores the secret lives of Catholic seminarians and middle-aged, closeted men. The novel has a number of Maine-based characters.

“Singing the Vernacular” takes readers from the snow-covered countryside of Quebec in the 1960s to the desert landscapes of southern California in the 1990s, with a frequent nod to the principal character’s youth in the Lewiston-Auburn area.

The book is both a coming-of-age story and a coming-out story. It explores a number of contemporary issues: homosexuality in the Catholic priesthood, bisexuality, closeted married men, peer pressure at any age and how to age gracefully.

It also casts light on the closed, parochial life of Franco-Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, not only in Lewiston but in mill towns throughout New England.

Paré began his writing career as a Lewiston Journal reporter in the early ’70s. He worked in public relations and as an editor and radio-television producer, winning an Emmy in 1980.

With his partner of 12 years, Michael Ferry, he owns an antique shop in Ogunquit, as well as tax-preparation businesses in Massachusetts and in Florida.

An excerpt of “Singing the Vernacular” was included in “Voyages: A Franco-American Reader,” a project undertaken by the Franco-American Studies Program at the University of Southern Maine’s Lewiston campus.

Paré said “Singing the Vernacular” is fiction while acknowledging that his own life has inspired the framework of the book. “I may have lived through a few of the situations in the novel, but their treatment and the characters involved are entirely fictitious,” he said. “That’s why it took 10 years to write. There was so much I had to make up, and, actually, that was the fun of it.”

“Singing the Vernacular” was published by iUniverse of Bloomington, Ind., and is available on Amazon.com and the Barnes & Noble Web site, and at independent bookstores.