The basis of this list was compiled by Christy Coombs of the Bangor Public Library from authors suggested by subscribers of MELIBS, the Maine Libraries listserv, in September 2002. To suggest another author, please contact us.
Bianco was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and lives now in South Portland, Maine, where besides being a mystery author, he is also an award-winning jewelry designer whose family operated the largest jewelry store in Brooklyn (John Bianco and Sons Fine Jewelry) for over 25 years, and an illustrator and painter who has studied at the Art Students League, School of Visual Arts, and Parsons School of Art. He and his wife, Lynnelle, own a jewelry store in Portland, Porte 4.
Bianco's first novel, Dying for Deception (2004), features New York police detective William Gillette and his task force as they investigate a series of murders of redheaded women who live alone. His essay titled "Subtle Writing Techniques of the Mystery Writer" (the first in a series of five articles on the topic) is available online.
(Pseudonym of Jean Scott Creighton) Miss Borthwick lives on the Maine coast and is the author of mystery novels set in Maine and featuring professor and amateur sleuth Sarah Deane and love interest Dr. Alex McKenzie.
Borthwick's books include:
Boyle, a Colby College graduate, now lives in China, ME and is a columnist ("According to Boyle") for the Morning Sentinel and Kennebec Journal.
Boyle's crime novels, which feature a reporter/sleuth, Jack McMorrow, are Deadline (1993), Bloodline (1995/2000), Lifeline (1996/1997), Potshot (1997/1998), Borderline (1998), and Cover Story (2000/2001), in which the Maine protagonist returns to his NYC roots. Potshot and Lifeline are both reviewed online by Harriet Klausner. Amazon has many reviews of Cover Story as well as a note from Boyle about this book.
Born in Portland, Maine, Ann Brahms published autobiographical articles in Greater Portland, Down East, and Good Old Days in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Prior to that, she and her husband Paul co-authored Puppy Ed: Training Your Dog at an Early Age (1981/1986), a highly regarded book that has been recommended by the association that places puppies with families who begin the young dogs' training as guide dogs for the blind. Brahms, one of Martin Dibner's writing students, published her first novel, The Burying Point in 1991. It, like her other novels, Cloak of Darkness (1992) and Run for Your Life (1993), is a romance suspense novel set in Maine. After many years of trying to find a publisher for her autobiography, Brahms self-published The Key Is Under the Flower Pot (1999), the story of her childhood and adolescence in Portland's West End.
Mystery and thriller writer Joanne Clarey grew up in Massachusetts, graduated from Colby College with a B.A. in English Literature (1962), earned her M.Ed. and Ed.D. in clinical counseling and supervision from the University of Maine at Orono, resided in Portland for many years, and lives now in Maine and New Hampshire in the summer. She lives in High Point, North Carolina, in the winter. Before she began writing for publication, she taught high school English, ran an antiques business, taught counseling and women's studies at the University of Southern Maine, and was a psychotherapist in private practice. Her webpage includes biographical info and more details about her books.
Her mysteries are set in the mountains of New Hampshire; they're The Mysteries of Hummingbird Falls (2005) and Riddled to Death (2006), in the Mysteries of Hummingbird Falls series, featuring a retired English teacher who investigates murders. Her books in the Dr. Christie McMorrow thriller series are set in Cumberland County, Maine and star forensic psychologist Christie McMorrow and detective Bill Drummond; they're Twisted Truth (2005) and Skinned (2007), based on her research into the child trafficking trade.
Carman Clark lives in Union, Maine, and is a regular columnist and the gardening editor for the Camden Herald; she's written the paper's From the Orange Mailbox column for over 20 years, compiling selections from the column for a book titled From the Orange Mailbox: Notes from a Few Country Acres (1985). She published her first mystery novel in 2001, The Maine Mulch Murder, in which a woman discovers the body of a young man who had come to rural Granton, Maine, to locate his birth parents. A sequel, The Corpse In The Compost, is planned. Clark's first career was as a school teacher specializing in language arts at Thomaston Junior High School. She is the mother of mystery novelist Kate Flora, who interviews Clark in the Spring 2001 issue of Mystery Readers Journal (not online), and Maine State Library Library Systems Specialist John Clark, whose personal website offers Clark's Orange Mailbox essays online. Clark is also working on a non-fiction book, Fourth Quarter Dividends/Personal, about living with grace and joy after age 60.
Bill Cohen was born in Bangor, the son of a Jewish father, a baker, and an Irish Protestant mother. He received an A.B. in Latin from Bowdoin College in 1962 and an LL.B cum laude from Boston University Law School in 1965. Cohen was a star basketball player in both high school and college.
Following his formal education, Cohen became an attorney with a Bangor law firm and Assistant County Attorney for Penobscot County from 1968-1970. He was vice president of the Maine Trial Lawyers Association from 1970-1972, entering public life as a city councilor in Bangor (1969-1972), also serving as Bangor's mayor from 1971-1972. He served as a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1972-1978, then was elected to the U.S. Senate, where he served until he announced his retirement after 3 terms in early 1996. Democratic President Clinton appointed Cohen as his Secretary of Defense in 1997, a position he held until 2001.
Cohen married Janet Langhart Cohen on Valentine's Day 1996; she was a former runway model and a seasoned television journalist who worked as a Boston newscaster and as correspondent for Entertainment Tonight and Black Entertainment Television.
Cohen has written poetry, suspense, and non-fiction. Titles include:
The University of Maine has a collection of Cohen's papers and more information about him. You can hear him giving a speech at the National Press Club (Jan. 2001) on NPR's website.
A native of Augusta, Maine, Corrigan received his B.A. in English from State University of New York at Fredonia and his M.F.A. from the University of Texas at El Paso. He has worked as a journalist and freelance writer, and was a literature instructor and the director of the Visiting Writer Series at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics in Limestone, Maine. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Presque Isle, Maine.
Corrigan has published poems, articles of academic non-fiction, and mysteries. His poems have been published in The River Review/La Revue Riviere; Echoes, Red Owl, The Rio Grande Review, Frost at Midnight, Storyteller, The Advocate, and other literary journals. His non-fiction includes works on dyslexia: "Teaching Dyslexics to Write: A Guide for The Composition Instructor," which appears as a chapter in Richard Graves' Writing, Teaching, Learning: A Sourcebook (1999; aka Rhetoric and Composition, 4th edition) and "A Guide for the Composition Instructor: Teaching Dyslexic Students to Write" in Teaching English in the Two-Year College (Oct. 1997).
His mystery series featuring pro golfer and Maine native Jack Austin includes these titles: Cut Shot (2001), in which Austin helps a rookie who's being blackmailed by a Mafia-run gambling ring; Snap Hook (2004), in which Austin investigates a kidnapping involving the Russian Mafia; Center Cut (2004), with Austin looking into the disappearance of his friend Grant Ashley's new wife; and Bad Lie (2005), in which Austin investigates the violent death of a college student's estranged father; and Out of Bounds (2007). Corrigan also writes a monthly column in Golf Today.
His favourite authors are Robert B. Parker, the creator of Spenser, and poet Philip Levine. There's an online interview with Corrigan as well as his own Jack Austin series website, for more information.
Mystery writer David A. Crossman, a Vinalhaven native, lives in Friendship. Previously an advertising and television writer and producer, Crossman published his first book, Murder in a Minor Key in 1994. Unlike his other mysteries, which have a Maine island setting, his first novel is set on an academic campus. Crossman is also the creator of Winston Crisp, a retired National Security agent, and the crime solver in A Show of Hands (1997/1998) and Dead of Winter (1999). Both books are subtitled "Maine Island Mysteries," which suggests Crossman and Down East Books plan to publish more Crisp novels. In addition to his adult mysteries, he's published two children's mysteries, The Secret of the Missing Grave (1999) that also has an island setting; and The Mystery of the Black Moriah (2002; review is second item on page). Crossman visits classrooms to learn students' reactions to his characters and plots.
Crossman also co-wrote You Can't Get Where You're Not Going with Les Francoeur in 1995, and he's a musician and musical composer; he co-wrote the Schooner Fare song " Big House, Middle House, Back House, Barn" with SF's Tom Rowe, and he's recorded three record albums.
Emerson, born in rural Liberty, New York, lives in Wilton, Maine, and has written over 25 historical and contemporary romances, historical mysteries, children's books, and non-fiction works of history. She has a B.A. from Bates College and an M.A. from Old Dominion University (Virginia). She's an active member of Sisters in Crime. Emerson's Web site contains lots more information about her and her books.
Her works include:
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Flora grew up on a poultry farm in Union, where her mother, A. Carman Clark, lived until her death in 2005. Flora, who attended the University of Maine but graduated from Tufts (1971) and Northeastern Univ. (Law, 1976), now lives in a planned community in West Concord, Mass with her husband, lawyer Kenneth Cohen. They have two sons, Max and Jake.
Flora has written 15 mysteries, including her Thea Kozak series, Chosen for Death (1994), Death in a Funhouse Mirror (1995), Death at the Wheel (1996), An Educated Death (1997/1999), Death in Paradise (1998/2000), and Liberty or Death (2003); and a police procedural set along the Maine coast, Playing God: A Joe Burgess Mystery (2006). Flora has also published a book under her given name, Katharine Clark, called Steal Away (1998), as well as another under the name Kate Clark Flora, Silent Buddy (1995), about Ross McIntyre, a small town high school biology teacher in Maine. In 2006, she and Joseph K. Loughlin of the Portland Police Dept. published a non-fiction book, Finding Amy: The True Story of Murder in Maine, about an unusual police investigation that resulted in the imprisonment of a 'psychopath' who murdered a young Biddeford woman in 2001." She co-edited Seasmoke: Crime Stories by New England Writers (2006), along with Ruth McCarty, and Susan Oleksiw.
Flora's Web site is called Kate's Lair. Flora has taught mystery writing at the Cambridge Center for Adult Ed. and at the Cape Cod Writer's Conference. She frequently speaks on Sisters-in-Crime panels and to library organisations. In fact, her brother John Clark is a Maine librarian.
Belfast resident Henry Garfield has published a series of young adult books (ages 12+) featuring Cyrus "Moondog" Nygerski, a California bus driver who claims to be a werewolf. Garfield, who moved to Maine in 2000 after living 16 years in San Diego (you can read his goodbye letter to his San Diego neighbourhood of Normal Heights online), grew up in Blue Hill, spent a year at the University of Maine, and had his first writing job at the Ellsworth American newspaper. Besides writing books, he also works as assistant librarian at the Carver Memorial Library in Searsport. He's a great-great-grandson of U.S. president James A. Garfield.
His books are Moondog (1995), Room 13 (1997; described as "a literary ghost story and crime novel with a werewolf....The tale of a young woman who battles a force of ultimate evil in a small California town classroom"), and Tartabull's Throw (2001; review of Tartabull), a mystery/suspense thriller set during the 1967 baseball season, when the Boston Red Sox battled three other teams for the American League pennant. In this book, Cyrus meets up with Cassandra, who lives on Deer Isle, Maine.
aka Teresa (Terry) Gerritsen, was born and raised in San Diego, CA,
received her B.A. in Anthropology from Stanford University (1975)
and her M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco.
She completed her internal medicine residency in Honolulu, Hawaii
along with her husband, also a physician. Gerritsen retired as
an internist to spend more time with her family and
to write. Gerritsen has her own web site, which provides biographical
information, photos, info about her books, and page of "creepy biological facts."
Mystery Ink Online's website offers a Sept. 2001
interview with Gerritsen. Bookreporter provides an August 2002
essay by Gerritsen about being a writer of medical thrillers. The Boston Globe offers a profile
of Gerritsen (Sept. 2006), focusing on her shift from writing Harlequins to writing best-selling thrillers.
Her books, which are romance novels and mystery/thrillers, include:
Her play, "Adrift," became a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week. Gerritsen also has stories in several romance trilogies:
Impulse: Three
Complete Novels (2000; with
books by Barbara Delinsky and Linda Howard); Heatwave (2000,
with stories by Gerritsen, Linda Lael Miller and Barbara Delinsky); and
Stolen Memories (2001, with stories by Gerritsen, Jayne Ann
Krentz and Stella Cameron).
Wisconsin native Sarah Graves moved to Eastport, Maine, after researching her first novel here. She's written a mystery series starring Ex-Wall Street wizard and heroine Jacobia Tiptree, now transplanted to Eastport, Maine. Books include: The Dead Cat Bounce (1998), Triple Witch (1999), Wicked Fix (2000), Repair to Her Grave: A Mainely Murder Mystery (2001), Wreck the Halls (2001, a Christmas mystery), Unhinged (2003), Mallets Aforethought (2004), Tool & Die (2005), and Nail Biter (2006).
Graves has her own website, with info on her books, excerpts, a photo, and brief biographical information. A Nov. 1998 interview with Graves is available through The Mystery Reader.
Corrilla Hastings, who grew up in Maine and attended Wellesley College as a botany major, ran Brick Farm Nursery and Garden Center in Skowhegan with her husband James for 30 years before retiring recently. Her first book is a mystery set in Maine, titled Dead Lady at Green Meadows, published in 1998. The reviews of Dead Lady on Amazon bookstore's site are very favourable.
Children's mystery writer Mary Childs Jane was born in Needham, Massachusetts, and graduated from Bridgewater State Teachers College (Mass.) in 1931. Before her marriage to William Jane in 1937, which whom she had two sons, she taught in Pippapon, Kentucky (1931-1932), Chester, Massachusetts (1932-1935), and Needham, Massachusetts (1935-1937). She was a long-time resident of Newcastle, Maine.
Jane's specialty was writing mysteries for middle school age children. She knew, from her teaching experience, that many reluctant readers can be lead to reading with mysteries. Her books include:
She also edited, with Jessie Wheeler Freeman, Interior of a Question Mark: Poems by Israel Newman (1957). Newman (1884-1954) was a Maine psychotherapist. Jane was for several years president of the Poetry Fellowship of Maine.
Susan Kenney was born in Summit, NJ, in 1941, received a BA from Northwestern University in 1963, and an MA and a PhD from Cornell in 1964 and 1968 respectively. She's taught at Colby College since 1968, becoming a full professor of English in 1986 and director of the creative writing program in 1991. She writes two kinds of books, academic mysteries featuring professor/sleuth Roz Howard, and a continuing saga of the Boyd family, laced with issues of illness and mortality. There's an article on Kenney in Great Women Mystery Writers (1994; ed. Kathleen G. Klein).
Kenney's Roz Howard mysteries are Garden of Malice (1983/84/92), in which academic-turned-sleuth Roz Howard travels from Vassar College to edit some newly discovered diaries in England, but finds that all is not what it seems at Montfort Abbey, the restored medieval estate with the bizarre gardens; Graves in Academe (1985/86), One Fell Sloop (1990), and Murder in the Wind: A Mystery Jigsaw Puzzle (1993). Her Boyd Family novels, which deal with cancer and its effects on a marriage, are In Another Country: A Novel (1984/85) and Sailing (1987/88), based on Kenney's real life experience of caring for her husband over a 15-year period.
Margaret Lawrence writes historical mysteries set in post-Revolutionary Rufford, Maine. Books include Hearts and Bones (1996); Blood Red Roses (1997); The Burning Bride (1998/1999); and The Iceweaver (2000).
Karen MacInerney, who resides now in Austin, Texas, hasn't lived in Maine but her mystery series is set on an island similar to Little Cranberry Island, which she's visited, and she continues to vacation in Maine annually. She also spent summers as a child on Pool's Island, off the coast of Newfoundland. Previous jobs have included public relations writer and advertising account executive. More about MacInerney on her website. She also has a weblog.
Her Gray Whale Inn culinary/cozy mystery series featuring 38-year-old Natalie Barnes is set in Maine:
aka Alisa Craig (her Canadian nom de plume), McLeod was originally Canadian (born in Bath, New Brunswick) but lived for years in rural Maine. Her many mysteries are imbued with a sense of humor, including the 12 featuring sleuth Sarah Kelling and the 10 that star sleuth Peter Shandy. MacLeod was co-founder of American Crime Writers League and she was nominated in 1988 for an Edgar Award for The Corpse in Oozak's Pond. Malice Domestic honoured her in 1998 with a lifetime achievement award. Mysterious Press offers a biographical paragraph on MacLeod as well as extensive information on some of her books. An excellent overview of MacLeod's series (under both names) is written by Terry Frey Weingart.
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: Had She But Known: A Biography of Mary Roberts Rinehart (1994)
Leslie Meier does not live in Maine and has never lived in Maine, but most of the books in her Lucy Stone mystery series are set in fictional Tinker's Cove, Maine, which Meier says is a sort of cross between her residence of Harwich, Cape Cod, Mass., and Camden, Maine, which she's visited. Originally from the Bronx, Meier moved to Cape Cod after she married her husband; there she lived a semi-rural life, keeping chickens, growing vegetables, and making yogurt with milk from a friend's goat. After her kids got older, Meier went to work as a newspaper reporter for her local weekly. Lucy Stone, the protagonist of the mystery series, is a sleuthing wife and mother of four.
The Lucy Stone mysteries include
Summaries of Meier's books are available on our 'Fiction Set in Maine' pages.
BJ Morison was born in Kittery and lived in Bar Harbor. She's the author of five mystery novels in the Little Maine Murder Series -- which feature a precocious child named Elizabeth Lamb Worthington who vacations with her Boston grandmother on Mount Desert every summer -- as well as a Christmas novel and an audio book. Books include:
Morison was the daughter-in-law of Samuel Eliot Morison, who pops up in her novels as 'the General,' Lemuel Otis Alsion.
Teagan Oliver is a pen name for Bethany Oliver, a native Mainer (born in Brunswick, raised in Harpswell) who still lives in midcoast Maine. Before she started her career as a fiction writer, she worked for DeLorme for several years promoting and selling non-fiction mapping books. Her articles have appeared in trade and regional publication, including her short story "Homeport," which was published in Portland magazine in 1998. She is a founding member and past president of Maine Romance Writers, and past president of Romance Writers of America (2001-2003). Her first romantic suspense novel, Obsidian, was published in early 2007 and is set in the fictitious coastal town of Chandler, Maine. Her next novel is expected to be a 'sweet paranormal' called The Three Truths of Katie Talmadge, in summer 2007. Oliver has both a website and a weblog. She gives workshops at writers' conferences on the subjects of author promotion, writing development, and goal setting.
Van Reid's family has lived in Edgecomb since the 1800s. Reid and his wife Margaret Hunter, a marine biologist at the Dept. of Marine Resources in Boothbay Harbor, live with their two children, Hunter and Mary, in a house Reid and his brother built on his family's land. Reid did not attend college, prefering to develop his own style, but he has worked many jobs, including carpet layer, hospital orderly, theatre reviewer and book columnist, and since 1990 has worked at the Maine Coast Book Shop. Reid also performs in local theatre.
Reid's books are a series taking place in the late 1800s on coastal Maine. They have been described as having "lemonade-at-the-fair" freshness; his vivid characters and humour have been compared with John Irving's; and the books are admittedly influenced by Dicken's The Pickwick Papers. His first book, Cordelia Underwood, or, the Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League (1998) was first serialised in the Lincoln County Weekly newspaper, from 1995-1997, and was quickly picked up by Penguin Putnam, who offered him a contract for a series of three books, which the editors thought would appeal to readers looking for "gentle fiction." The second in the series is Mollie Peer, or, The Underground Adventures of the Moosepath League (1999/2000; Rambles review of Mollie Peer and New York Times mini-review of Mollie Peer) and the third is Daniel Plainway, or, the Holiday Haunting of the Moosepath League (2000; Rambles review of Daniel Plainway). In 2003, the fourth book, Mrs. Roberto, or the Widowy Worries of the Moosepath League, was published, and the fifth (and final) installment in the series, Fiddler's Green, involving an epic wedding, a society ball and a bizarre backwoods feud, in July 2004. He also published Peter Loon: A Novel (2002), another work of historical fiction, set in Maine (Massachusetts at the time), after the Revolutionary War.
For more, check out Reid's website. The Boothbay Harbor Register also provides information about Reid.
This mystery writer, whose sleuth is lesbian ex-nun/writer Brigid Donovan, sets her books in Maine: Murder is Relative (1990; set in Quebec City, rural Maine, and Manhattan), Murder is Germaine (1991; set in Maine and the country of Panama) and Murder is Material (1994; set in Maine). She's also written another, non-series book, I Never Read Thoreau: A Mystery Novel (1996), set on small Monte Cassino island off the coast of Maine. It's part mystery, part history, party introspection, and involves the smuggling of illegal aliens into Canada.
Marjorie Sharmat, a popular children's writer, was born in Portland, Maine (grew up on Dartmouth Street), and knew from childhood she wanted to be a writer. Practicality prevailed, however, when, after graduating from Deering High School in 1946, she attended Westbrook Junior College, now the University of New England's Portland campus, and majored in merchandising. After graduating in 1948, she worked in retail and advertising. She also wrote greeting card copy. During the early 1950s, she was employed by Yale University in its libraries.
In 1957, she married Mitchell Sharmat with whom she later wrote the "Olivia Sharp, Agent for Secrets" series. Like Lynn Plourde, she became interested in children's books when she started to read them to her own children. Her first book, Rex, was published in 1967. Most of Sharmat's books are either picture books or Easy Readers. She has great insight into children's concerns and uses a gentle touch of humor to calm their fears. She also writes for middle graders, young adults and has published movie and television show novelizations.
In addition to the Olivia Sharp series, Sharmat wrote four other series, one of which is "The Kids on the Bus," a mystery series. The second series, "Nate the Great," focuses on the adventures of a boy detective and has been translated into several other languages. In a 1983 interview, Sharmat revealed Nate is named for her father. She collaborated with her sons, Andrew and Craig, in writing several of the books in the two series. "Maggie Marmelstein" is a series for middle graders. A later series is "Genghis Khan," republished in paperback as the "Duz Shedd Stories." It focuses on movie star dog Duz whose screen name is Genghis Khan.
Sharmat used the pen name Wendy Andrews for three books: Are We There Yet? (1985); Supergirl Storybook: Based on the Motion Picture Supergirl (1984); and Vacation Fever! (1984).
Until 1975, the Sharmat family lived in Westchester County, New York. They then moved to Tucson, Arizona. Gila Monsters Meet You at the Airport (1983) was influenced by children's statements and questions about what the family would find when they arrived in the Southwest.
Sharmat is not only a popular children's writer, she is also the recipient of many awards. A film adaptation of Nate the Great Goes Undercover won the 1974 Los Angeles International Children's Film Festival Award. Some of the organizations that have praised her writing are the Children's Book Council, Child Study Association, International Reading Association, Parents' Choice, and the National Council of Social Studies. She is featured in a 24-page children's book, Marjorie Weinman Sharmat (Children's Author series; 2004) by Jill C. Wheeler. Her papers are in the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi.
Sharmat's works include:
A 1963 Skidmore College graduate, Shetterly is a Blue Hill resident. She was a writer for the now defunct Maine Times and has been a contributor to Aubudon Magazine. Five of her poems have been published in the Beloit Poetry Journal.
Her first book, The New Year's Owl: Encounters With Animals, People & The Land They Share, was published in 1986. In The Dward Wizard of Uxmal (1990), Shetterly retells a Mayan legend. That same year she also published The Tinker of Salt Cove, which is based on the life of an itinerant tinker whose appearance in Sullivan, Maine, raised questions and concerns among the residents. Native American legends were the source for her next two books; a Pacific Northwest creation story was retold in Raven's Light (1991) and a Maine Passamaquoddy legend was the basis for Muwin and the Magic Hare (1993).
In Shelterwood: Discovering the Forest (1999; ill. by Rebecca Haley McCall of Bue Hill), a young girl learns about trees and the beauty of the forest when she visits her grandfather. The National Science Teachers' Association named it one of the Outstanding Children's Science Books 2000. The Maine Audubon Society also reviewed it favorably. Both The Maine Woods (a publication of the Forest Ecology Network) and the Ellsworth American published articles on how and why Shetterly wrote Shelterwood.
Julia Spencer-Fleming lives in Buxton in a large 1800s farmhouse with three children, her husband, and their dog. Raised in a military family, she was born on Plattsburgh Air Force Base (NY) and spent most of her childhood moving around. She studied acting and history at Ithaca College, received her JD from the University of Maine School of Law, and has worked full-time as a Portland area attorney.
Her debut novel, a police procedural mystery titled In the Bleak Midwinter (2002), won the 2001 Malice Domestic Award for Best First Traditional Mystery and the 2003 Anthony Award for Best First Novel. It's an atmospheric upstate New York thriller set in fictional small town Miller Kills, featuring newly ordained Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson, and involving an abandoned newborn baby left on the church steps. The mystery is well reviewed by Harriet Klausner. The second book in the series, A Fountain Filled With Blood, was published in 2003; Clare Fergusson tries to solve the murder of a gay man in a small upstate New York town. The third (2004) is titled Out of the Deep I Cry (excerpted), with the focus on town gossip about Clare's ambiguous relationship with the married Sheriff Russ Van Alstyne, and the disappearance of the doctor of the town's free clinic. To Darkness and To Death is the fourth (2005), set in the summer estates of the Adirondacks, which takes place in the course of just one day. The fifth, All Mortal Flesh, came out in 2006.
More information on the book and Spencer-Fleming's author appearances is available on her website. An interview with Spencer-Fleming, from Jan. 2004, is available at Sisters in Crime.
Born in Calais, Maine, Prescott was a well-known mainstream writer who wrote detective stories, science fiction, and romance tales. Her first major magazine sale was to the Atlantic Monthly, a detective story called "In the Cellar" (1859). Some of her stories are included in The Amber Gods and Other Stories, which was re-published in 1989, ed. by Alfred Bendixen. Spofford lived most of her adult life in Newburyport and Amesbury, MA. She married Newburyport lawyer Richard S. Spofford in 1865.
Spofford's works include the following:
An article about Spofford and her work is available through the Classic Mystery and Detection site. There is an entry on Spofford in Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present (ed. Robert McHenry, 1983). Some of Spofford's poems are available through Poets Corner.
Van de Wetering has been a motorcycle gang member in South Africa, a Zen disciple in Japan, and a volunteer police cop in Amsterdam. He was born in Rotterdam, raised in Amsterdam, and has lived in the places listed above as well as Colombia, Peru, and Australia, but since 1975 he's settled in a post-and-beam home (with several outbuildings) on 65 acres on the Union River in Surry, Maine, with his wife Juanita, an artist. He attended Delft University (1948), the College for Service Abroad (1949-51), Cambridge University (1951), and the University of London (1957-58). For more about Van de Wetering, this site offers a detailed biography, bibliography (including books in print), and photos, and an interesting short article on Van de Wetering's "Zen detectives" from Eye.Net. He was interviewed on the NPR program "Fresh Air" in Jan. 1997. Van de Wetering was featured on the Maine Public TV program "Good Reads" in July 2000 and that site provides biographical material, a works list, excerpts, and his favourite books list.
Although he didn't start publishing until he was in his 40s, Van de Wetering has written over 35 books, including crime novels featuring two Dutch detectives, children's books, and non-fiction.
Van de Wetering's crime novels and collections include:
His children's books include Little Owl (1978; about Buddhism), Hugh Pine (1980; Hugh Pine is a porcupine), Hugh Pine and the Good Place (1986), and Hugh Pine and Something Else (1989).
Auto/Biographical works include The Empty Mirror: Experiences in a Japanese Zen Monastery (1973), A Glimpse of Nothingness: Experiences in an American Zen Community (1975; 1999), Afterzen: Experiences of a Zen Student Out of His Ear (1999/2001), and Robert van Gulik: His Life, His Work (1988), a biography of the Dutch diplomat, orientalist, and novelist.
Voigt, a resident of Deer Isle since the early 1990s, was born in Boston, raised in Connecticut, went to Dana Hall School, and is a 1963 Smith College graduate. She was a high school English teacher in Glen Burnie and Annapolis, Maryland and continued teaching during the early years of her writing career. For more on Voigt, check the Random House Voigt biography. Some of the links below also offer a plethora of biographical information on Voigt.
Voigt's first book, Homecoming (link is to a detailed Teacher's Guide) was published in 1981. The idea for the book came to her when she saw several children waiting by themselves in a car. Although she was working on a novel that would later be published as Building Blocks (1984), she put it aside and began writing Homecoming, the story of the abandoned Tillerman children. When it was published, she received immediate favorable recognition from reviewers and quickly became and remains one of the most popular writers of young adult books. The Tillermans are also the focus of Dicey's Song (1982; teacher's guide to Dicey's Song), which won the 1983 Newbery Award, Sons From Afar (1987), and Seventeen Against the Dealer (1989).
Minor characters in the Tillerman series are the central characters in A Solitary Blue (1993), a 1994 Newbery Honor Book, and Come a Stranger (1995).
Voigt addresses many of the issues and fears faced by today's adolescents. The concerns include:
In addition to her contemporary novels, Voigt has written several historical novels set in the middle ages. The Kingdom Series includes Jackaroo (1985), On Fortune's Wheel (1990), and The Wings of a Falcon (1993). Elske (1999) is also set in the time and location of the Kingdom.
Her versatile writing talent is also expressed in her mystery novels, The Vandemark Mummy (1991) and The Callender Papers (1983; 2000) which received the Edgar Award for the best juvenile mystery in the year it was published.
In 1995, Voigt received the Margaret Alexander Edwards Award. The award, named after a noted Young Adult Services librarian, is given in recognition of a writer's collective work rather than a single book. She was the 2004 recipient of the Maine Library Association Youth Services Section's Katahdin Award for lifetime achievement in children's literature.
Other Voigt titles are: Tell Me If The Lovers Are Losers (1982); Stories About Rosie (1986); Shore Writers' Sampler II: Stories And Poems (1988); Glass Mountain: A Novel (1991); David and Jonathan (1992); The Rosie Stories (2003; ill. Cat Bowman Smith), a chapter book written from the dog's point of view; Good Moring, Rosie (2003). Her novel with a Maine setting, Tree By Leaf, was published in 1988. A young children's book, Angus and Sadie (2005) is about two border collie puppies adopted by a Maine farm couple.
Although only one book, Presenting Cynthia, (1995) has been published about Voigt, there are numerous websites focusing on her books. The sites range from the thoughtful comments about Voigt's writing of an eighth grader from Cross River, New York, to the scholarly views on Voigt's Jackaroo of a Virginia Tech philosophy professor.
And, as some of her books have been translated into German, there are even German web pages, such as this description of Jackaroo.
Lea Wait, who lives in Edgecomb, is the author of children's historical novels (for kids ages 8-12), and a new mystery series for adults starring antique print dealer Maggie Summer. She is also an antique prints dealer herself. Wait grew up in suburban New Jersey (summering in Maine), was a drama and English major at Chatham College in Pittsburgh, PA, attended grad school at New York University, studying American civilization, and worked in corporate public relations. In her 20s and single, she adopted four girls from Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong and India (all now grown), and she founded a support group for single adoptive parents; she is still on the board of the National Council for Single Adoptive Parents. Wait's website has more information about her and her books.
Her books for children and young adults are:
Wait's website provides teachers' guides and Q&A on her children's books.
Her mystery series books -- featuring Maggie Summer, professor of history at Somerset County Community College and owner of Shadows Antiques, an antique prints shop -- are:
She's also published a non-fiction book about writing, co-written with Lesley Bolton, titled The Only Writing Series You'll Ever Need: Writing Children's Books (2007).
A native Mississippian (born Macon, MS) who spent his childhood in Ohio, Williams graduated from Dartmouth in 1910, worked as a reporter for the Boston American from 1910-1916, and went on to live outside of Boston, summering in North Searsmont and Blue Hill and to write over 35 novels and 400 short stories, many set in the mythical village of Fraternity, Maine (similar to his home in the Searsport area), as well as some histories and other non-fiction works. His wife, Florence Trafton Talpey of York, Maine, was descended from a long line of sea captains. Williams received honorary degrees in American literature from Dartmouth College and Colby College.
Works include:
Williams also edited A Diary from Dixie (1949; written by Mary Boykin Chesnut) and wrote the introduction to The Kenneth Roberts Reader (1945).
The Mississippi Writers and Musicians Project of Starkville High School in Mississippi has a webpage about Williams, with a list of works, a biography, a short timeline, and a number of links for more info on Williams.
Robley Wilson, born in Brunswick, Maine, is a short story writer, novelist, and poet, and was long-time editor (1968-2000) of The North American Review; he also taught in the English department at the University of Northern Iowa (Cedar Falls) from l963 until 2000. He graduated from Bowdoin College with honors in English in 1957 (receiving an honorary degree from same in 1987) and earned an MFA with distinction from the University of Iowa in 1968. He's married to fiction writer Susan Hubbard, English professor at the University of Central Florida (Orlando) and author of two short story collections, Blue Money (1999) and Walking on Ice (1990).
Wilson is the author of several short story collections:
His stories have also appeared in anthologies, including The Pushcart Prize III, Best American Short Stories of l979, The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction, Fiction of the Eighties: A decade of stories from TriQuarterly, and The Ploughshares Reader: New Fiction for the Eighties. He contributed to Time and Chance: An Iowa Murder Mystery (1998), a serial novel by 17 Iowa writers. Three short stories -- "Flaggers," "Fathers," and "Barber" -- are available online.
Wilson's poetry collections include
Several of Wilson's poems are available online, including
Wilson has also edited some fiction anthologies, including Three Stances of Modern Fiction: A Critical Anthology (1972; with his former Bowdoin College professor and friend Stephen Minot); Four-Minute Fictions: Fifty Stories from the North American Review (1987), with very short stories by Raymond Carver, Jayne Anne Phillips, Barry Lopez, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Stephen Dixon, Pamela Painter, W. P. Kinsella, Doris Read, Diane Vreuls, etc; and 100% Pure Florida Fiction : An Anthology (2000; with his wife, Susan Hubbard).
An extensive Sept. 1990 interview with Wilson is online.
