LEWISTON — The annual meeting of the Friends of Lewiston Public Library will take place on Thursday, Nov. 9, featuring journalist and author Warren Watson in conversation with Maine journalist Bill Nemitz. Together, they will be discussing Warren’s latest book, “Claire and Charlie: An Unlikely Wartime Love Story.” The Friends business meeting will take place at 6 p.m. and the Watson/Nemitz talk will begin at 6:30 p.m. Books will be available for sale and signing at the event. Both the meeting and talk will take place in LPL’s Callahan Hall, 200 Lisbon St., and are free and open to the public.

In this new memoir, Watson traces the path of immigrants in his family from Quebec and Great Britain via Ellis Island, through World War II, and to the eponymous lovers’ meeting as penpals, then on a New Hampshire farm in 1945. In an advance review of the book, Carol Ann Riordan, former interim executive director of the American Press Institute, writes “Warren Watson’s journey into his family’s history will resonate with and inspire anyone who is intrigued by their ancestry. Claire and Charlie’s love story is laced with themes experienced by all who have embraced America as their homeland: hard work and hope, patriotism and promise. And, at the heart of all great love stories is family, a treasure beyond measure.”

Warren Watson has been a journalist and author for 44 years, writing and editing in 11 states for organizations as large as the St. Petersburg Times and as small as the Somersworth-Berwicks Free Press. He has been a top editor at daily newspapers in Portland, Augusta, Waterville, Peabody, Mass., and Alton, Ill., as well as an international consultant and teacher at the American Press Institute, University of Missouri, Arizona State University and Ball State University. Watson is also the author of “Surviving Journalism: What to Do When Your Career Path Breaks,” a Marion Street Press book exploring how business changes in journalism have disrupted career journalists.

Joining him is Bill Nemitz, a Maine journalist since 1977. Nemitz began writing his column for the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram in 1995. In addition to every corner of Maine, his work has taken him to Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, Haiti and to the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 attack on Manhattan. The Maine Press Association named Nemitz Maine Journalist of the Year in 2004. He was inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame in 2015.

Copies of Watson’s new book will be available for sale at the event and a signing will follow the talk. 

FMI: 207-513-3135 or LPLReference@gmail.com.