Skidompha Library’s popular Chats with Champions program presents award-winning author Julia Spencer-Fleming, on Thursday, June 26 at 10 a.m. in the Porter Meeting Hall of Skidompha Library.

A former “military brat,” this New York Times bestselling author grew up in places as diverse as Montgomery, Ala., Syracuse, N.Y., Rome, Italy, and Stuttgart, Germany. A graduate of Ithaca College, George Washington University and the University of Maine School of Law, she took up writing while still a stay-at-home mother of two.

During the time it took to finish her first novel, she got a full-time job at a Portland law firm and had a third child. Spencer-Fleming didn’t want to write another lawyer-sleuth, so she used her Army past and a keen eye for the goings-on at her Episcopal church to create “Clare Fergusson,” first female priest in the small Adirondack town of Millers Kill. The resulting series has won or been nominated for every American mystery award available, including the Edgar, the Anthony, and the Agatha. Her most recent book is “Through the Evil Days.”

Now happily quit of the law, Spencer-Fleming lives in the Maine countryside with her husband, daughter, and occasionally, a couple of college students.

Skidompha Public Library is located at 184 Main Street in Damariscotta. For more information call, 207-563-5513.

Chats series sponsor for 2014 is The First in Damariscotta, a community bank chartered in 1864, which serves customers at 14 locations along the coast of Maine.