PORTLAND

The Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance has named Kristine Snow Millard of Saco and Jill McLaughlin of Portland as the fall recipients of the 2019 Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship for Maine Writers, a partnership between the Maine Community Foundation and the MWPA. The two attended the MWPA’s 2019 Harvest Writers Retreat last week at the Sebasco Harbor Resort in Phippsburg. The all-expense-paid event included a time of study with award-winning nonfiction writer Alysia Abbott.

Millard is a journalist, attorney, local freelancer and school magazine writer, who landed in the USM Stonecoast MFA program at age 51. Her essay, “Spring Harbor, Again,” appeared in the anthology “Into Sanity: Essays About Mental Health, Mental Illness, and Living In Between,” published in 2019 by Talking Writing. She and her husband, Jim, are the parents of two adult daughters and live in Saco.

McLaughlin graduated from the College of William & Mary with a degree in English, and then attended the Columbia Publishing Course at the Columbia School of Journalism. She has worked as a freelance editor for Island Press and as a publicist for Farrar, Straus and Giroux. At FSG she worked closely with authors such as Michael Cunningham, Vivian Gornick and John Waters. She lives in Portland, where she works as the marketing and education coordinator for ReVision Energy. She has written for various online publications including “One Art,” “Nomad Trading” and “Sugarbush,” and writes a biweekly “TinyLetter,” featuring personal essays and book reviews.

The Martin Dibner Memorial Fellowship for Maine Writers is a partnership between the Maine Community Foundation and the MWPA; the Maine Community Foundation provides funding and the MWPA administers the fellowships. Dibner Fellows receive full funding to attend the MWPA’s Black Fly Writers Retreat in spring or the Harvest Writers Retreat in autumn. For more details, call 228-8264.

AUGUSTA

The Maine Department of Health and Human Services has opened a new office in the Calais, establishing a full-time presence at 338 North St.

The department signed a 20-year lease for the 3,500-square-foot building, which can house about 15 staffers, including those with the Office for Family Independence, Office of Aging and Disability Services, Office of Child and Family Services and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Services provided include processing of applications and renewals for public assistance programs.

The department’s previous office in Calais closed in October 2016. That office had served an average of approximately 21 clients per day. Eligibility specialists were subsequently made available at a satellite site in Calais one day per week, which the department increased to two days per week in March.

Anyone interested in public assistance benefits may visit My Maine Connection for information and to apply online. For more details, call 855-797-4357.