When she was a young girl, Carolyn Gage loved summer camp. She loved it more than school. She loved it more than hanging out at home in the hot months. Now as an adult, Gage, a writer who identifies herself as a “lesbian-feminist playwright, performer, director and activist,” knows that the all-female environment allowed her to feel more comfortable about herself.

“Girl Scout camp meant the world to me,” said Gage. “Looking back, I realize most of my counselors were lesbians. It was a culture not based on appearance or any of the values based on school life. It was away from mirrors and diets and makeup and boys, all of which was a bad fit for many of us.”

A girls camp in Maine is the setting of Gage’s coming-of-age, coming-out drama, “Ugly Ducklings,” which will be read and discussed 2:15-4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, at the Bangor Public Library as part of Made in Maine Theatre Workshop, a forum for Maine playwrights and theater devotees. Sponsored by the library and Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance, a variety of readings will take place monthly through next spring as a way for statewide playwrights to present and to receive feedback about their scripts.

The series began last month with a reading of “Standing Just Outside the Door” by Sanford Phippen, the Hancock-based writer. Laura Emack, a writer who coordinates the program, chose Gage next because she wanted to kick off the series with two well-known figures in statewide literary circles.

“I had interviewed Carolyn not too long ago and really felt her work deserved more attention than it was getting,” said Emack, whose play “Writers Block” will be read Nov. 15 at the library.

Gage, who lives in Portland, calls “Ugly Ducklings” her “coming-out” play.

“I think it’s an adage among gays and lesbian writers that you write a coming-out story,” said the playwright, whose own coming out didn’t occur until she had been married and was in her 30s. She left the marriage, her Christian faith and the South, where she had been raised, lived in all-female communities in Oregon, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in theater from Portland State University, lived in San Francisco and, most important, began to express and explore herself as an artist.

After guest lecturing at Bates College in Lewiston a few years ago, Gage decided to move to Portland, where she writes, tours internationally with theater pieces, and is artistic director of Cauldron and Labrys, an all-women theater group.

While her childhood times at summer camp were an unspoken brush with others who may have been lesbian, there was no attention paid, no language used to express any sensibility about lesbianism during her formative years, said Gage. For that reason, she has made it her mission to advocate on behalf of others who may feel alone, isolated and suicidal, as she did, in a mainstream heterosexual world. She has written four books on theater and more than 40 dramatic works.

“If I had encountered any lesbian literature as a young adult, I would have known it was my story,” said Gage, whose one-woman show “The Second Coming of Joan of Arc” was recently produced in Brazil. “When you are young and different, all you can think of is that you are wrong. That’s a situation young gays and lesbians are set up for by lack of role models and lack of cultural acceptance.”

In “Ugly Duckings,” two young camp counselors struggle with understanding their feelings for each other and the treatment they receive from campers and administrators. Sexual abuse, self-mutilation, class issues and incest, as well as the ramifications of homophobia and gay baiting, hover in the background.

Gage, who said her plays are partially autobiographical, is particularly interested in providing works for teens who may be struggling with and faltering because of these issues in their lives. She hopes that the reading in Bangor will highlight gay and lesbian teen suicide. “This is one closet,” she said, “where the skeletons are all too literal.”

In addition to work by lesbian and gay activists, Gage credits the Internet with helping troubled or questing young gays and lesbians connect with others who feel the way they do, as well as role models and adults who can help them feel more comfortable about their lives.

“Now someone who is gay or lesbian and who would have had to grow up with that secret until their 20s can go online and find other gays and lesbians,” said Gage. “That breaks down the isolation and ignorance. And I think that saves lives.”

Made in Maine Theatre Workshop will present a dramatic reading of “Ugly Ducklings” 2:15- 4 p.m. Oct. 25 in the Lecture Room of the Bangor Public Library. A discussion and refreshments will follow the reading. A $2 donation is requested. For more information about Made in Maine Theatre Workshop, call 567-3437.