Please join us on October 21 at 4 p.m. for a special reading by author Stephanie Cotsirilos with live music by Middle Eastern string instrumentalist and scholar Nathan Kolosko.

Together they will invoke the haunting culture behind the main character of Cotsirilos’s dynamic new novella, My Xanthi.

A deeply personal story echoing global displacements, whether at the Mexican border, refugee camps, or in too-often ignored colonial American history, Stephanie Cotsirilos’ debut novella My Xanthi centers on a Greek immigrant woman whose wartime secrets teach a criminal defense lawyer about love’s triumph over injustice.

To keep our community as safe as possible, please wear a mask when visiting the gallery for events.

About Stephanie Cotsirilos

Stephanie’s extended family’s roots in Greece, Peru, and Asia have shaped her journey as an author, lawyer, and performing artist.

The journey began in Chicago, where she was born. Though her first language was Greek, English followed rapidly.

After a career in the performing arts, Stephanie returned to Yale for a law degree and joined a New York firm. She and her late husband formed a family with Scottish, Greek, and Indigenous Peruvian ancestry. After his death, she moved with her small son to Maine.

She kept writing: legislative drafting, opinion pieces, strategic documents for nonprofits, poetry, fiction. As consultant and Interim Executive Director of Portland Ballet, she returned full circle to the arts and soon after, was accepted into The Writers Hotel conference in Manhattan, joining U.S. and international peers. 

Stephanie is now author of the novella My Xanthi (Los Galesburg Press), essayist in the anthology of New England writers, Breaking Bread (Beacon Press), and was published finalist in Mississippi Review’s Prize in Fiction. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in numerous print and online venues including McSweeney’s, The New Guard, New Millennium Writings, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and various media. In 2021, she was awarded the Patrice Krant fellowship in residence at Storyknife’s inaugural retreat for women writers in Alaska.

About Nathan Kolosko

Multi-instrumentalist/composer Nathan Kolosko received his M.A. in classical guitar performance at the University of Denver, Lamont School of Music. Nathan has been a private music instructor for over twenty-five years. Nathan has been on the faculty of the University of Southern Maine, St. Joseph’s College, Maine College of Art and the Portland Conservatory of Music. Nathan is a fun, engaging and dedicated teacher as well as a certified Suzuki guitar instructor. In 2008 Nathan founded the guitar program at the New England Suzuki Institute and played a critical role in writing the curriculum for the music minor at Maine College of Art.

Nathan has studied with luminaries from the guitar world including Ricardo Iznaola, the Castellani-Andriaccio Duo, Pierre Bensusan, Lorenzo Micheli and Oscar Ghiglia. Nathan has recorded four studio albums which have received critical praise

Nathan has over twenty published compositions which have been performed and recorded by musicians throughout the world; from Japan and Taiwan, to Belgium, New Zealand and Australia. Nathan has received grants and awards from the Maine Arts Commission, the Allied Arts Foundation and D'Addario Strings.

Nathan has collaborated with numerous musicians including Carl Dimow and Dan Cosley, as well as visual artist Ling-Wen Tsai. In addition to guitar, Nathan also performs on Oud, Persian Tar and Kamanche/Tarhu with the Portland based Middle Eastern ensemble Zapion & percussionist Eric LaPerna.