Annual Meeting
The Friends’ Annual Meeting occurs in the fall and includes an invited speaker. The public is welcome to attend and enjoy the speaker’s presentation, which takes place after a brief business meeting.
The 2026 Annual Meeting will take place on Saturday, November 14 at First Parish Church United, 48 Main Street. The speaker is local author Meg Mitchell Moore.
The business portion of the afternoon will begin at 2:00 pm, and Meg will speak at 2:30. The public is invited to attend and enjoy the speaker; only members can vote during the business meeting.
The slate of officers will be available for review in advance of the meeting.
THIS YEAR’S EVENT
Down with the Shipmans
Meg will discuss her latest novel, Down with the Shipmans, which was released in June 2026. The novel follows three sisters as they return to their family’s summer home on the New Hampshire coast for a reunion, the first since their mother’s death several years earlier. Once there, the sisters find out their father plans to sell the cherished beach house. As old memories are stirred up and the sisters navigate both the packing of the house and their personal crises, the arrival of their father Calvin’s new wife pushes Jordan, Natalie, and Mae to decide how far they’re willing to go to preserve the Shipman bond.
About Meg
Meg Mitchell Moore worked for many years as a copyeditor, editor, and writer for a variety of nonfiction publications before turning to fiction, publishing her first novel in 2011. She has since published nine more novels, all but one set in New England. (The Admissions is set in Northern California, where her family moved for exactly one year before returning to the east coast.) Among her novels are national bestsellers, Indie Next picks, and a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick. She has a B.A. in English from Providence College and a master’s degree in English Literature from New York University.
Meg lives with her family in Newburyport, MA, where she is a member of the steering committee for the Newburyport Literary Festival.
PAST SPEAKERS
The Friends have hosted authors on a variety of fiction and non-fiction topics over the years.
2025: Ted Reinstein (Travels Through the Heart and Soul of New England) [Read Blog Post]
2024: Dan Souza (America’s Test Kitchen 25: 500 Recipes That Changed the Way America Cooks) [Read Blog Post or View Photos]
2023: Marcella Pixley (Trowbridge Road) [Read Blog Post]
2022: (Speaker unable to attend)
2021: E. Dolores Johnson (Say I’m Dead: A Family Memoir of Race, Secrets and Love) (Held virtually on Zoom)
2020: Stephen Puleo (Voyage of Mercy: The USS Jamestown, the Irish Famine, and the Remarkable Story of America’s First Humanitarian Mission) (Held virtually on Zoom)
2019: Marianne Leone (Ma Speaks Up)
2018: Kate Clifford Larson (Rosemary)
2017: Brunonia Barry (The Fifth Petal)
2016: Joe Bagley (A History of Boston in 50 Artifacts)
2015: Lylah Alphonse (news collection & reporting in the digital age)
2014: Hank Phillippi Ryan (Truth Be Told)
2013: Bridget Lancaster (The Science of Good Cooking)
2012: Andre Dubus III (Townie)
2011: Charlie Pierce (Idiot America)
2010: Elinor Lipman (The Family Man)
2009: Matthew Pearl (The Last Dickens)
2008: Elizabeth Royte (Bottlemania)
2007: Eric Jay Dolin (Leviathan)
2006: Jim McAllister (of Derby Square Tours, on Salem witch trials)
