This summer, the Bar Harbor Historical Society is sponsoring a series of dramatic readings with local actors, presenting the secret lives of four Maine writers through an exploration of their own writings about their same-sex relationships, including letters, poems, and memoirs. The readings celebrate Maine history and culture, and broaden our understanding of some of our most famous authors.

A young “Vincent Millay” as she insisted her classmates call her, grew up in poverty in Camden, Maine, with her mother and her two sisters. Her poetic talents were on display at a local inn, and summer visitor Caroline Dow, dazzled by her brilliance, decided to become her patron, financing her education and pulling strings among networks of powerful women, to get Millay into Vassar. When Millay’s relationships with female students threatened scandal, her patron presented with Millay with a cruel choice that would change the course of her life.