ABBY PAIGE

The world feels heavy right now, especially if you’re living in the United States — the weight of violence, fear, and uncertainty as the systems that are supposed to hold things together seem to be cracking in some places and falling away in others. I feel it every day in waves, as though we’re on a boat, being tossing from one coast of history to another.

I am also finding deep meaning these days in the work I’m doing and the work I am seeing others do — work to create community, to show care, to connect with others, to keep in touch with beauty. I think often of author Rebecca Solnit’s words, “Do not surrender, and do not spread surrender through your speech and example.”

For me this refusal to surrender means keeping in touch with nature, letting a lady bug crawl across my cheek or listening to the sound the leaves make when they fall off the trees, remembering that the world is bigger and more beautiful than our fear lets us believe. It means keeping in touch with the arts, listening to music, buying tickets to plays, looking at visual art with my eyes very open, remembering that humans are creative, even if some of us are bent on destruction. It means forging ahead with creative projects of my own and finding ways to use my work to talk to people about other ways of being, about our and our ancestors’ dreams of freedom, remembering that dreams are powerful when they are shared.

How are you refusing to surrender?

Now more than any other time in my lifetime, we must defend our imaginations, our communities, our neighbors, and our shared dreams of a better world. One way to do that is to gather together and celebrate each other’s unique gifts. Below are a few of the places where I’ll be doing just that in the coming weeks. I hope, whoever you find yourself, you’ll find a way to do the same. And regardless, wherever you are, stay free.

Le petit rassemblement des artistes franco-américan
Saturday, November 1, 2025, 1:00pm
The Franco-American Collection at the University of Southern Maine
(virtual option available)

This extraordinary afternoon will feature a talk by historian Paul Buck on Maine statehood and the influence of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 on Maine identity, followed by a panel discussion by four Franco-American artists about how their heritage has impacted their creative work. With Charles Gargiulo, Abby Paige, Robert Perreault and Susan Poulin. Click this link for details.

“An Iteration in Progress”
November 12, 14, 15 & 16, 2025
The Tank, 312 West 36th Street, Manhattan

For the past two years I have been collaborating with my friend Leah Souffrant on a performance research project that we call the LeAb Iteration Lab. We’ve been exploring our shared interests in art, theater, poetry, and process to develop the LeAb’s first performance work, which we’re thrilled to be bringing to The Tank in Manhattan for four performances this fall.

Using movement, repetition, silence, and sustained attention, “An Iteration in Progress” asks questions about how routine shapes our lives and how we tell stories about everyday experience — questions to which we invite the audience to respond! Click here for tickets and info.

Out Now: A new issue of Résonance

I’m so proud to share with you the latest issue of Résonance, the Franco-American literary journal for which I currently serve as Drama & Book Review Editor. This, our seventh issue, features some truly spectacular writing, including a deeply considered review of the Franco-American dimensions of Ron Currie’s novel, The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne, by Joan Vermette, and a profile of Maine humorist and performer Susan Poulin.