Maine author Shannon Bowring will open a window into the ebb and flow of life in a small town on Sunday, Aug. 3, at 2 p.m., at the Thomaston Public Library. This collaborative community event, co-sponsored by Cushing and Thomaston Public Libraries, is free and open to the public.

Bowring’s novels chronicle the lives of the families who live in the fictitious Aroostook County town of Dalton with compassion and honesty, according to a news release.

"This is a world which almost anyone can recognize, and it is filled with absorbing characters who encounter life’s tragedies, as well as its triumphs," said the release.

Shannon Bowring grew up in Ashland, in Aroostook County. Her hometown was the inspiration for Dalton. The Road to Dalton, her debut novel, was chosen as an NPR Best Book of 2023, and was awarded the Maine Literary Book Award for Fiction in 2024. In 2024, her second novel, Where the Forest Meets the Trees, was released. A third Dalton novel, In a Distant Valley, will be available this fall. Bowring holds an MFA from University of Southern Maine Stonecoast residency program and still resides in Maine.

For more information, email Wendy Roberts @ wrobertsmaine63@gmail.com.