Old Town author wins Stephen Harvard Prize

PORTLAND – Nancy Ruth Leavitt of Old Town has received the fifth Stephen Harvard Prize for her work, “Parallel Constructions.” The award for excellence in the book arts was made by the Baxter Society at a program in the Glickman Library at the University of Southern Maine.

Runners-up are: Ascensius Press of Portland, “Ethan Frome,” Anne-Claude Cotty of Stonington, “Prologue, Consent to a New Day,” and Peter Randall of Portsmouth, N.H., “One Woman’s Work: The Visual Art of Celia Leighton Thaxter.”

The competition, which drew 40 entries, honors the memory of Harvard, who died in 1988.

The society is named for James Phinney Baxter, Portland mayor and philanthropist.