Kate Baer's HOW ABOUT NOW w/ Chelsea Conaboy

The third full-length poetry collection from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman.

Renowned poet Kate Baer returns with a bold and compassionate collection that confronts the march of time in a shifting world.

With her trademark candor and curiosity, Baer explores what it means to grow older, to release children into the wildness of their own lives, and to reclaim the ever-evolving self. Raw, luminous, and urgent, this collection channels Baer’s own journey to middle age into poems that are profoundly intimate yet resound universally, identifying the beauty, resilience, and fragility that arrive in every stage of life.

How About Now is a striking declaration of ongoing transformation and self-discovery. From the poet who has captured the heartbeat of the modern woman, this collection reaffirms Kate Baer’s place among the most vital voices of our era.

Friday, November 7 at 6:00 PM (doors 5:30 PM). $7 for Mechanics' Hall Members, $10 for General Admission, $24 for a paperback copy of How About Now + General Admission.

There will be a Q&A and book signing.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kate Baer is the three-time New York Times bestselling author of What Kind of Woman, I Hope This Finds You Well, and And Yet. Her work has also been published in The New Yorker, Literary Hub, Huffington Post, and the New York Times.

Chelsea Conaboy is a health and science journalist. She started my career at the small but mighty Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, where she discovered her love for narrative writing. She wrote about health care at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Boston Globe, and was part of the Globe staff that won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news, for coverage of the Boston Marathon bombings. For three years, she led the features report at the Portland Press Herald in Maine, where she edited weekly sections on arts and entertainment, books, food, and sustainable living. Her writing also has been published by The New York Times, Mother Jones, Politico, the Boston Sunday Globe magazine, National Journal, The Week, ParentMap, and WBUR. She has been a fellow with the Poynter Institute, the National Library of Medicine, and the Health Coverage Fellowship led by writer Larry Tye.

Mother Brain: How Neuroscience Is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood, published by Henry Holt & Co., is her first book. The writing and reporting of Mother Brain was supported by a generous grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Public Understanding of Science and Technology Program. Parts of Mother Brain were written in the cabins of the Hewnoaks Artist Residency. Chelsea lives in a 1920s bungalow near the ocean in Maine, where she gardens poorly and serves as a board member of the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. She especially enjoys assignments that allow her to work with her husband, the extremely talented photographer Yoon S. Byun. Together they publish dispatches about their most important collaboration, parenting their two young children, on Instagram: @StrewnWonder.

PARKING & TRANSPORTATION

Mechanics’ Hall is located at 519 Congress Street. Our main entrance is between Loquat Shop and the Art Mart. The Greater Portland Metro’s Congress & Casco Street Stop is directly in front of our building, served by route 1, 7, 8, and 9B.

Parking is available at the , which has entrances on Casco and Brown Street, with a rate of $5 per hour. Metered street parking is available on Congress, Casco, Cumberland, Free Street, and other nearby streets. Free hourly street parking is available between Parris and Alder Street.

ACCESSIBILITY

To enter our building, patrons will need to navigate a single step. There is a wheelchair-accessible elevator and a ramp available upon request.

If you have a wheelchair or need accessibility accommodations/questions please contact us at or 207-773-8396.

Also check out other Arts events in Portland, Literary Art events in Portland, Health & Wellness events in Portland.