Last summer’s exhibition at The Old Jail Museum in Wiscasset — featuring Madam Sally Wood, Maine’s first woman novelist and an early-19th century resident of Wiscasset, along with over 30 other Lincoln County women writers — was so warmly received that the Lincoln County Historical Association (LCHA) has held it over for a second season, now expanded for 2023.

“Calling All Book Clubs” is a special opening event at the Old Jail (133 Federal St. Wiscasset) on Tuesday, May 30. All readers involved in any sort of book club -- organized among friends or by libraries or by the public radio series -- are invited to half-price ($5) pre-season lecture-tours led by the curator, Alice Smith Duncan, at 1 and 3 p.m. The exhibition opens for the season on June 3 - Oct. 15.

Since 1804, a stunning range and number of women writers, past and present, have called Lincoln County home or worked here extensively. As a Maine writer, Madam Wood’s exceptional legacy is not just as the first woman to publish fiction, but for inventing the American Gothic novel. She lived in Wiscasset, but virtually each of the county’s sixteen towns boasts at least one woman writer of renown, and more writers are drawn to and from the region each year.

This abundance of influential literary women – native-born, in-migrants, summer citizens, retirees – range from internationally acclaimed naturalist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 Silent Spring led to the founding of the Environmental Protection Agency; to Elizabeth Coatsworth, the first winner of the Newbery Award for children’s books and to the Caldecott Award-winning writer/illustrator Barbara Cooney of Miss Rumphius fame; from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ola Elizabeth Winslow, to FDR’s Secretary of Labor and his first biographer, Frances Perkins of Newcastle; from the nationally influential historian and political commentator Heather Cox Richardson to Chloe Maxmin, former Lincoln County political representative; from mystery writer Lea Wait to celebrated novelist Meredith Hall and other a score of other noteworthy fiction writers, historians, poets, memoirists, children’s authors and illustrators.

In 2023 LCHA will also partner with libraries and Maine Writers and Publishers to examine the burgeoning role of independent publishers, writing instruction, and writers groups; a closing event in October will be “Calling All Writing Groups.” Other tours, lectures, events, and activities are still being scheduled.

For more information, email lchamaine1954@gmail.com or see www.lincolncountyhistory.org