Mary Elizabeth Aubé grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and from a young age was fascinated when her father spoke French with his parents from Lewiston, Maine, and with his colleagues at the university where he was a professor. She earned a Ph.D. in French Studies at Brown University. She has recently published a saga about a woman fur trader, By the Last Winter Moon, Waterwith Editions, excerpts of which won prizes from The Sycamore Review and the Eden Mills Writers Festival. On her blog at maryelizabethaube.ca she chronicles her Franco-American family’s presence in North America.
Joshua Barrière is a master's student in literary studies at Université Laval. His thesis deals with the critical edition of the correspondence between Yvonne Le Maître and Rosaire Dion-Lévesque. In parallel with his studies, he works as a paralegal in litigation for a financial institution. He also holds an advanced graduate diploma in accounting.
France Belleville is a self-taught artist who has always loved cars and drawing. But instead of going to art school, she studied English and became a public school teacher. In addition to commissioned works and producing her own series of art classes, she is the author of SKETCH! The Non-Artist’s Guide to Inspiration, Technique, and Drawing Daily Life (Penguin Random House, 2014), which has been translated into multiple languages for publication around the world. Find her at wagonized.com.
Michael Bérubé has taught literature at Penn State University since 2001, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for twelve years before that. His best-known work to date is Life as We Know It: A Father, A Family, and an Exceptional Child, which was a New York Times notable book of the year for 1996 and was selected by Maureen Corrigan of National Public Radio as one of the best books of year (on a list of seven). He has written creative nonfiction for many years, various works of literary criticism and theory, and one two-act play.
Alayna Blier grew up in Gardiner, Maine, with her feet in the grass and her nose in a book. She spent lots of time with her grandparents, Don and Irene Ouellette, and has deep ties to her Franco-American roots. Alayna graduated from Colby College in 2026 with a BA in English: Creative Writing with Honors. She’s relocating to Brooklyn and hopes to eventually complete an MFA in Fiction.
Robert Boucheron has worked as an architect, editor, journalist, and musician in New York and Charlottesville, Virginia. His stories, essays, book reviews, and translations appear in Alabama Literary Review, Avalon Literary Review, Floyd County Moonshine, Loch Raven Review, Saturday Evening Post, and other magazines. His one-act plays have been staged in Detroit, Michigan; Concord, North Carolina; and Hagerstown, Maryland.
Claire-Marie Brisson, originally from Dearborn, Michigan, is a Preceptor in French at Harvard University. Her scholarship follows Francophone life along the Detroit to Québec corridor, and her book Michiganaise: Tracing Francophone Identity in the Great Lakes is forthcoming from Wayne State University Press in February 2027. She also hosts the North American Francophone Podcast. While her notebooks and notes app are all filled with poems she has written through the years, the poems in “Étatsunoise” are her first to appear in print.
Leslie Choquette is Professor of History and Director of the French Institute at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. A social historian of France and French North America, she is the author of Frenchmen into Peasants: Modernity and Tradition in the Peopling of French Canada (Harvard University Press, 1997), which received the Heggoy Prize for the best book in French colonial history from the French Colonial Historical Society.
An independent scholar, Jeanne Douillard probed the history of the French in New England for over twenty-five years. Her passion led her to delve deeply into the quagmire of conflicting historiographies. English, French and American historians of the past offered up irreconcilable views of La Nouvelle France [New France] and its people. This work led to her first book, I Remember… Je Me Souviens… published in 2015 and revised in 2022. Douillard was a major contributor to Building a Better Life: The French Canadian Experience in Western Massachusetts, published by The Republican newspaper in Springfield, MA. Her work also appeared in Heliotrope, an anthology of women writers of French heritage. In addition to giving presentations throughout New England, Jeanne has published her first poetry book entitled La Vie Est Dûr Mais Mon Coeur Chante, and is currently working on a chapbook entitled North Carolina Memories. She is a member of the Poetry Seminar of Charlemont, MA.
Annabelle Ford is a Franco-American writer based in Paris. She’s a copywriter by pay, a novelist by passion, and serves as Reviews Editor for Souvenir, a Paris-based literary magazine.
Monique Gagnon German is a former content developer, technical writer, and copy editor with degrees from Northeastern University and Northern Arizona University. Monique lives in Maine with her husband, children, and duo of dogs. Her poetry has graced the pages of over 45 journals and anthologies including: Rosebud, California Quarterly, Tampa Review, Beyond Words, Off the Coast, The San Diego Poetry Annual, and The Wayfarer. Her flash-fiction and short stories have been featured in: Typishly, The MacGuffin, Adelaide Literary Review, and the Running Wild Press 2019 Anthology of Short Stories. Monique is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee.
Jay Gitlin is Senior Lecturer in History and Associate Director of the Howard R. Lamar Center for the Study of Frontiers and Borders at Yale University. He specializes in the social and cultural history of North America. His first book, The Bourgeois Frontier: French Towns, French Traders, and American Expansion, was published in 2010 by Yale University Press and won the Heggoy Prize for the best book in French colonial history from the French Colonial Historical Society.
A native of Keene, New Hampshire, Franco-American novelist and poet Ernest Hebert has published more than a dozen books since his first novel, The Dogs of March, came out in 1979. A lifelong champion of working people, Hebert held several jobs, including working at a gas station, in a hospital laundry room, and as a newspaper reporter, before becoming a professor of English and creative writing at Dartmouth College in 1989. He retired in 2015. At age eighty-five, Hebert has recently completed his fourteenth novel.
Denis Ledoux is known for exploring Franco-American themes both in memoirs and in fiction. His latest book, Here to Stay/Lives in 17th Century Canada (2025), looks at lives of pioneer Canadian settlers. It is an everyman and everywoman story of difficulty, heroism, and survival. His French Boy/A 1950s Franco-American Childhood (2023) is the story of a generation as it explores the Franco community he was born into.
Until his retirement in 2020, Henri Marchand worked for the City of Lowell as Assistant to the City Manager and Director of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Henri also served as producer of WUML Sunrise, a public radio program and Assistant Director at The Lowell Plan, a private, non-profit economic development agency. Henri has written features for the Lowell Sun and Merrimack Valley Magazine; essays for UMass Lowell’s Sunrise radio program and richardhowe.com a local blog covering Lowell politics, culture, and history; and the histories of the Jeanne d’Arc Credit Union and his family’s home and neighborhood. A graduate of Harvard University Henri serves on the Board of Directors of the Jeanne d’Arc Credit Union. His interests include gardening, golfing, and magic.
David Obuchowski is a prolific and awards-winning/nominated writer of fiction and longform nonfiction. He's published more than two dozen stories in magazines and journals in his native US, as well as other countries. His nonfiction has been optioned and adapted for film and television. He co-authored the children’s book, How Birds Sleep (Astra, 2023), which was named a Best Book of 2023 by Bank Street College and School Library Journal and awarded Outstanding Science Trade Book by the National Science Teachers Association and Children's Book Council.
Born into a small Franco-American community in Maine, Pierre Patenaude is a self-taught Canadian/ American photographer who now lives in the Estrie region of Québec. His work explores sense of place as both physical and psychological inheritance, and its connection to memory, identity and experience. He works with 35mm black-and-white film, developing and printing his photographs in a home darkroom. His first monograph – Une relique, je crois – is scheduled to be published in 2027 by Reflex Editions.
Susan Pinette is a Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures and Director of Franco American Programs at The University of Maine. She was born and raised in Maine. She received her doctorate in French at the University of California, Irvine. Her research examines contemporary Franco American literature, where she shows its significance to the broader arenas of North American Francophone communities and American studies.
Born into a French-speaking Catholic parish in Manchester, NH, in the 1950s, Jean Pouliot had a ground-level view of Vatican II, French-Canadian culture in crisis, and the political tumult of the 1960s. He shares these experiences through songs, stories, and poems. With degrees from the University of New Hampshire and Saint John’s Seminary, he is married with two grown sons and lives in Newbury, Massachusetts. He is the author of The Singing Bridge: Hymns to a Franco-American Mill Town, several children’s books, and the forthcoming memoir, Face Laite: A Good Catholic Boy Takes on the Swinging ‘60s. His work can be found on Amazon and Substack.
Émilie-Noëlle Provost has held editorial roles at four magazine titles and is the author of two novels. Her second novel The River Is Everywhere (Vine Leaves Press, 2023), the coming-of-age story of a Franco-American teenager, was a finalist for three national literary awards and has been recently released as an audiobook. Her third novel, the first in a three-part family drama set in Île d’Orléans, near Québec City, will be published sometime in 2028. When she’s not writing, Émilie enjoys hiking, crocheting, and listening to Québécois and Celtic roots music. You can see what she’s up to at emilienoelleprovost.com.
Linda Clavette Quigley was born in Lewiston, Maine and now resides in Southern California. Her work is shaped by my lifelong love of animals as well as her passion for genealogy. She has exhibited her artwork in New England and California. Quigley creates custom art through Linda’s Pet Portraits. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Plymouth State College and a Certificate in Studio Arts from the University of Southern Maine. http://www.lindaspetportraits.org
Steven Riel is the author of two full-length collections of poetry (Edgemere and Fellow Odd Fellow), as well as three chapbooks, the most recent being Postcard from P-town, which was published as runner-up for the inaugural Robin Becker Chapbook Prize. His poems have appeared in several anthologies and numerous periodicals. He holds an MFA in Poetry from New England College.
Shelly Rodrigue is a queer Cajun American poet living in New Hampshire. She was born and raised on the outskirts of New Orleans, LA and obtained an M.F.A. from the University of New Orleans. Her poems appear in a variety of journals and magazines, most recently including The Core Review, Touchstone, River and South Review, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at 20: A Louisiana Anthology of Poetry with Art. When she is not writing, she teaches college English.
Adèle Saint-Pierre is a Franco-American artist working in watercolor and colored pencil. She is a signature member of the National Association of Women Artists and an artist member of The Collaborative in Warren, Rhode Island. A career educator, she calls both Providence and Québec City her home.
Yvonne Salmon is a writer, artist and filmmaker. Recent work has appeared in The Martello Journal, 2025 Ver Poetry Prize Anthology, and The Frogmore Papers.
Cheryl Savageau’s honors and awards include Fellowships in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Massachusetts Artist Fellowship Program; a nomination for the Pulitzer from Curbstone Press for her book, Dirt Road Home, which was also a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; two Pushcart nominations; and four Fellowships at MacDowell, including the Isabella Gardner Fellowship. She is the author of three books of poetry: Home Country, Dirt Road Home, and Mother/Land. She has also written a hybrid memoir, Out of the Crazywoods, and a multi- award-winning picture book, Muskrat Will Be Swimming. Her work has appeared in A Public Space, Yellow Medicine Review, AGNI, The Boston Review, and The Cape Cod Poetry Review, among other journals. Her poetry is highly anthologized, most recently in Kinds of Cool: An Interactive Collection of Jazz Poetry, Yellow: A Hue Are Anthology, and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology.
Jeri Thériault grew up in Waterville, Maine. She is the author of Self-Portrait as Homestead, Radost, my red, and (M)OTHER; she also edited Wait: Poems from the Pandemic. Her awards include: a Fulbright Exchange Award, fellowships from the Maine Arts Commission and Monson Arts, the 2022 Norwood Prize, and a Maine Literary Award. Jeri is the Poetry Editor of Résonance. She lives in South Portland, Maine.
Bill Tremblay is a widely-published, award-winning poet, novelist, teacher, editor, and reviewer whose work has appeared in ten full-length volumes of poetry, including Crying in the Cheap Seats; Duhamel: Ideas of Order in Little Canada (which was a finalist for the National Poetry series); and Shooting Script: Door of Fire (awarded the Colorado Book Award). Tremblay is the recipient of the John F. Stern Distinguished Professor Award for his thirty-three years of service at Colorado State University. He served as Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing as well as the AWP Program Directors’ Council. He founded Colorado Review, and for fifteen years he was Editor-in-Chief and now serves on its Board of Advisers. He has taught American Literature at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa on a Fulbright-Hays Lectureship. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts as well as grants from the Corporation at Yaddo and the Mountain Writers Center. He has been appointed the first Poet Laureate of Southbridge, Massachusetts, his hometown. His poems in this volume are from Dinner for Hungry Ghosts, forthcoming from Lynx House Press.
Patrick Trombly lives in Manhattan. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in several journals including Connecticut River Review, Roanoke Review, Relief, Feed the Holy, Amethyst Review, The Closed Eye Open, The Dewdrop, Loch Raven Review, 1922 Review, Hemlock Review, The Argyle, and Die Leere Mitte. His poems have won and been honored in various competitions; most recently, he was a finalist in a Four Tulips Literary Magazine contest, and short-listed in a PHIL LIT Journal contest.
Joan Vermette has spent the last 30 years creating groundbreaking digital customer experiences for Fortune 500 companies, and in her spare time exploring and advocating for her Franco-American heritage. These days, she’s focused on writing a historical novel about a 19th-century Acadian schoolteacher, and renovating 25 acres in Southern Maine using regenerative agriculture principles and practices.