Meet Maine author Agnes Bushell and hear about her most recent novel, Verity and Perpetua: A Novel in Six Acts, on Sunday, May 17, at 2 p.m., at Thomaston Public Library. This collaborative community event, co-sponsored by Cushing and Thomaston Public Libraries, is free and open to the public.

The novel describes the high-spirited exploits of two clever young orphans who possess a singular talent for speaking in rhyme. They arrive in Elizabethan London and soon become involved with playwrights, conspirators, witches, spies, noblemen, and rogues.

"But Verity and Perpetua is not merely a clever picaresque novel," said a library news release. "It has much to say about friendship and identity and provides a new spin on the perennial question of just who wrote a certain set of Elizabethan plays."

Agnes Bushell’s first novel, Local Deities, was published in 1989. Since then, she has published 14 more works of fiction, including mysteries, political novels, and literary fiction. She is the recipient of two Maine Literary Awards and is Associate Professor Emerita in Liberal Arts at Maine College of Art and Design, where she taught for twenty years. Currently, she is the editorial director of Littoral Books, a small press based in Portland which focuses on publishing the work of Maine writers and artists.

For more information, contact Wendy Roberts at wrobertsmaine63@gmail.com.