Virginia Would Be Proud

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$50,000 gifts offer women the chance to pursue creative passion

Shortly after her mother’s death in the summer of 2000, Darlene Chandler Bassett arrived at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu for a women’s retreat—a box of Kleenex and a copy of Virginia Woolf’s "A Room of Her Own" in her backpack.

For almost five years—since she’d quit the executive job she’d had for 20 years as corporate executive for entrepreneur Eli Broad—Chandler Bassett had been adrift, waiting for a strike of passion to lead her to the next phase of her life. Continue reading this story.

MWPA Member Wins Gift of Freedom Award
An Interview with Maine's own Meredith Hall

Editor's Note: I am pleased and honored to open my first issue as editor of Maine in Print with this captivating interview with the A Room of Her Own Foundation's Gift of Freedom Award winner, Meredith Hall. A resident of Maine, Meredith teaches and is the Assistant Director of the Writing Program at the University of New Hampshire. Her work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction. She won the Pushcart Prize, and is the 2004 recipient of the Gift of Freedom Award, a one-year writing grant from A Room of Her Own Foundation. She is currently working on a collection of essays titled Without a Map.

Meredith's heartening story inspires me in my journey as a woman, a writer, editor, and Mainer.

-Rachael Raffel, Executive Editor
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