Award-winning author Suzanne Strempek Shea will appear at Southport Memorial Library on Wednesday, July 6 at 7 p.m. to give a presentation on her recent book “This is Paradise: an Irish Mother's Grief, an African Village's Plight and the Medical Clinic That Brought Fresh Hope to Both,” the story of Mags Riordan, founder of the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic in the African nation of Malawi.

In 2000 on the one-year anniversary of her son Billy’s drowning in Malawi, Mags journeyed to Malawi where, by happenstance, she saved the life of a local boy, who otherwise would have died from a simple infection, and realized the desperate need for a medical clinic. With virtually no relevant experience, medical or otherwise, Mags founded a clinic that to date has saved and transformed the lives of tens of thousands of Malawians.

Shea, winner of the 2000 New England Book Award, which recognizes a literary body of work's contribution to the region, began writing fiction in her spare time while working as reporter for the Springfield (Mass) Newspapers and “The Providence (Rhode Island) Journal.” She is the author of six novels, among them “Selling the Lite of Heaven” and “Make a Wish but Not for Money,” and three memoirs including “Sundays in America: a Yearlong Road Trip in Search of Christian Faith.” Her freelance journalism and fiction has appeared in magazines and newspapers including “Yankee,” “Down East” and “The Boston Globe.”

Shea is a member of the faculty at the University of Southern Maine's Stonecoast MFA program in creative writing and is writer-in-residence and director of the creative writing program at Bay Path University in Longmeadow, Mass. She also has taught in Ireland, at the Curlew Writers Conferences in Howth and Dingle, and in Dingle via the Stonecoast Ireland residency.

The talk will be followed by a question and answer period and a book signing. Southport Memorial Library is located at 1032 Hendricks Hill Road, at the southern end of Southport Island. For more information call the library at 207-633-2741.