Author Monica Wood spoke Thursday at the Great Falls Forum in Lewiston about her career and the value of public libraries. Wood, a native of the town of Mexico, lives in Portland. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

LEWISTON — As a child, Monica Wood borrowed the maximum number of books allowed every week from her library in Mexico, Maine. If she had time, she read them twice.

The award-winning author told a Great Falls Forum audience Thursday at the Lewiston Public Library that her unrestricted access to books is a major reason she went on to become a writer.

“Not once have I ever been prevented from reading whatever I wanted,” she said. “As a writer, I would have been lost without libraries.”

Wood, who has written multiple bestsellers, defended libraries as having a reach that is “vast, varied and vital” at a time when they are also “under siege” from censors, school boards and the federal government.

Wood said she recently asked her state representatives to stand up for public libraries as federal layoffs and the threat of funding cuts loom, and she urged the audience to do the same.

Early this month, the Trump administration placed the entire staff of the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the largest source of federal funding for museums and libraries nationwide, on administrative leave.

Days later, the Maine State Library laid off nearly one-third of its staff after losing federal funding. Maine is among more than 20 states suing the federal government over its attempt to shutter the library institute.

In rural Maine, like where Wood grew up, cuts could have an outsized impact, especially for people who rely on public libraries for internet access for job applications, education, health care and more.

Farmington Public Library Director Jessica Casey recently told the Sun Journal that she frequently sees people outside in the parking lot using the library’s internet when it’s closed.

Wood said in her hometown, the Mexico Public Library was “heaven indeed for a little girl falling in love with reading,” and became a second home.

Author Monica Wood, left, signs books and speaks Thursday with fans Margaret Craven, center, and Gina Fuller, both from Lewiston, after her talk at the Great Falls Forum in the Callahan Room of the Lewiston Public Library. Wood, who grew up in the town of Mexico, read from her latest book, “How to Read a Book,” and spoke about the influence libraries have had on her own life. Andree Kehn/Sun Journal

She said libraries provide a sense of safety for the public and have the ability to set her at ease. When she’s in a difficult stretch of writing, she frequents several libraries in the greater Portland area, where she lives.

But, she also pointed out public libraries’ increased role as places of refuge for people who are unhoused, providing warmth and a place to “experience safety in the most literal sense of that word.”

Wood said she worries that children today, who have needs “more varied than we ever imagined,” could soon lose access to certain books, and characters, that could make a difference in their lives. She said for her, it was Anne Shirley from “Anne of Green Gables.”

“I found a freckle-faced, redhead like me who loved words,” she said. “I loved and required her in my life. My hope for every child is that they find what they need in the stories available to them.”

Wood also spoke about the power of storytelling and how it can bring people together.

“Storytelling is part of who we are as a species,” she said. “Stories bring us news, warnings, information, humor, joy, sorrow and sometimes, best of all, they can bring us together.”

Wood said she’s been surprised at how much her 2012 memoir, “When We Were the Kennedys,” which chronicled her upbringing in an Irish Catholic family in a mill town, has resonated with people from all over the country. She said when she wrote it, she “couldn’t imagine it would have traction outside the borders of Oxford County.”

“Sometimes books can be the right thing at the right time,” she said. “We bring a lot of ourselves to a book … If I write a book that’s read by 100,000 people, I’ve written 100,000 books.”

Wood has received multiple literary awards, including the 2024 Sarah Josepha Hale Award for excellence in the arts in New England; the 2019 Constance Carlson Prize for contributions to the public humanities in Maine; and the 2018 Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance Distinguished Achievement Award.

Her newest novel, “How to Read a Book,” was released last year. Her other works include the bestselling “The One-in-a-Million Boy,” “Any Bitter Thing,” “Ernie’s Ark” and My Only Story.”

She read the audience a line from a favorite poem about storytelling that says, “there is someone out there right now with a wound in the exact shape of your words.”

Wood said writing itself is “an act of empathy,” because it requires the ability “to imagine yourself as somebody else.”

Librarians, she said, should be lauded for the work they do in their communities, calling them “guardians” of an essential “right to read whatever we want.”