The Briar Patch invites you to enjoy an evening of discussion with debut author Judson Merrill about his new novel, PARANOID STORYTELLING. He will be in discussion with author and journalist Sarah Walker Caron about writing, developing this unique novel and his path to authorship.
Join us at 7pm on Tuesday, July 7 at BookSpace, our literary event space located at 48 Columbia Street in Bangor. See you there!
ABOUT JUDSON MERRILL:
Judson Merrill grew up in Maine, studied literature and writing at Brown University, and received his MFA from Brooklyn College. Inspired by the way the novel began—as a fraud and a thief, stealing and repurposing popular storytelling forms—Merrill has spent the last decade writing work that uses today’s popular forms in new and daring ways. In June 2026, Under the BQE press will publish his book Paranoid Storytelling.
ABOUT PARANOID STORYTELLING:
Our body politic is not just figuratively ill–it’s been poisoned. When writer Judson Merrill started researching the new field of cultural immunology because he believed it could diagnose the cause of America’s dissolution, he didn’t realize the most prominent researcher in the field would vanish, and that the possible diagnosis would vanish with her. A novel that reads as narrative nonfiction, PARANOID STORYTELLING chronicles the explosive story of Merrill’s travels across Europe as he pieces together a trail of research that uncovers a radical explanation for our collective sickness: Paranoia. Rogue information has infected the stories that bind our culture. But the closer Merrill gets to definitive proof, the more enemies he makes and the less certain he becomes that the truth will set us free. In fact, it might just make us sicker.
ABOUT SARAH WALKER CARON:
Sarah Walker Caron is a Pushcart nominated essayist as well as a food writer, journalist and author whose recent books include The Pizza Planet Cookbook, The Disney Princess Tea Parties Cookbook and Classic Diners of Maine. Her work has appeared in Farmer-ish, The Washington Post, the Boston Globe, SheKnows and more. She was named columnist of the year by the Maine Press Association in 2015. Most recently, she had creative nonfiction essays published in the journal Farmer-ish and the charity anthology Rivers of Ink. She is a part-time faculty member at the University of Maine and Husson University where she teaches journalism and blogging. She graduated from Barnard College, where she studied political science, and received her Masters in English with a Concentration in Creative Writing at the University of Maine. Sarah lives in Maine.