Mechanics’ Hall, Kelly’s Books to Go, and Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, are pleased to host the launch of The Rabbit, a chapbook by Coco McCracken. Register HERE.

The Rabbit was chosen by critically acclaimed nonfiction writer Melissa Febos as the winner of the 2021 Maine Chapbook Contest. Febos notes, “The Rabbit engulfed me in its pitch-perfect voice, which evokes the sorrow and elation of teenaged girlhood while implying the wise retrospective gaze of its narrator. From Snow White and Princess Diana to the peril and sublimity of the mosh pit, Coco McCracken lucidly articulates the ordinary and acute conflicts that attend coming of age, and the resiliency of her young protagonist.”

Joining in the launch will be the 2019 and 2020 Maine Chapbook Series winners, poet Suzanne Langlois and fiction writer Brandon Dudley. Writer Jaed Coffin will also join Coco McCracken in conversation about The Rabbit.
Chapbooks will available for sale at the event, and Coco will sign copies afterwards, along with Suzanne and Brandon.

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Born into a mixed-race family in Toronto, Coco McCracken has always been interested in writing about the intersectionality of place, race, and identity. With mystery shrouding her ancestry, her work is equal parts detective work and rhetorical relief, which comes from examining what it means to be a half-Asian, half-white woman, today. Now, raising a young daughter in Maine she embarks on her new immigrant identity as half-Canadian, half-American. Coco currently has a newsletter called Coco’s Echo, writes a monthly column for Amjambo Africa, and is working on her first memoir.