Miriam Colwell (1917 - )

Genre: General Fiction

Born in Prospect Harbor, Miriam Colwell lived with her maternal grandparents as her mother died when Miriam was a toddler and her father was ill with tuberculosis. She graduated from Winter Harbor High School and then attended the University of Maine, Orono, majoring in English. She left before graduating to live in New York where she was a freelance and advertising copywriter. She returned to Prospect Harbor in 1940 and became the town's postmaster; her grandfather had held the position but had been forced to leave when he reached the mandatory retirement age. Colwell was 23 and the youngest postmaster in the United States.

Colwell's first novel, Wind off the Water (1945), is a realistic view of a coastal Maine village. Two years later she published Day of the Trumpet (1947), which is based on her ancestors' experience as one of the first Maine lobster families. Her third novel, Young (1955, republished 1998), depicts 24 hours in the lives of two young women who have just graduated from high school. Although Colwell sold the rights to a movie company, the movie was never produced. Her fourth novel, Contentment Cove, whose 1950s plot revolves around the intertwined lives of three women in a Maine coastal town, was written in the 1950s but not published until 2006.

Colwell was the long-time friend/companion of artist and writer Chenoweth Hall (1908-1999) and attributes Hall with having the most influence on her writing.

An extensive June 2005 interview with Miriam Colwell is located on the Smithsonian Archives of American Art website.


Last Update: 08/01/2007

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