NOTE: Books available at the WATERBORO PUBLIC LIBRARY will appear in PLUM TELETYPE. Please note that the Waterboro Public Library does not have most of these books!
Nangle is a freelance travel and sports writer who has lived in Maine since childhood; she grew up in the Portland area and now lives in Waldoboro with her husband, photographer Tom Nangle. She attended College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. (class of 1980), and started a graduate degree in Middle Eastern studies before dropping out to work for whitewater rafting companies and ski resorts. She was managing editor for Gourmet News, a trade publication, from 1992-1995 and features editor for the Brunswick Times Record newspaper from 1995-1998.
Nangle is the contract editor for the Maine Office of Tourism's "contract editor for Maine Invites You" guide. She has edited or contributed to Moon Handbooks Maine (due out Spring 2007); Moon Handbooks Acadia (2nd ed., due out Spring 2006); Moon Handbooks Coastal Maine (2nd ed., May 2005); many Fodor's guidebooks including New England Gold, New England Bed & Breakfast, Great American Vacations, and Weekends from Boston; the annually published Ski and Snowboard America and Canada (contributor and eastern editor); and the biannually published Ski Europe (contributor). She publishes articles in American Style, the Boston Globe, New England Travel and Life, SKI, AAA's Northern New England Journey, and Yankee, among others. She won the 2003 Harold S. Hirsch Award for Excellence in Snowsports Journalism for magazines, and the Maine Media Women's 1998 Communicator of Achievement Award. She's featured monthly as travel expert on a Portland TV talk show called "207." Some of her articles are available online at her website.
John Neal was an important voice in 19th-century literature as a writer and critic who wrote one of the earliest histories of American literature. Born in Portland, he moved to Baltimore when he was 21 to start a dry goods business. When the business failed, he became the editor of The Portico, a monthly literary magazine that also had a short life. Neal's first novel, Keep Cool, Written in Hot Weather, by Somebody M.D.C., &c., &c., &c. Author of Sundry Works of Great Merit, Never Published, or Read, From His Story. Reviewed by Himself --- "Esquire", was published in 1817. The next year he published two narrative poems, "Battle of the Niagara, a Poem, without Notes," and "Goldau, or, the Maniac Harper," for which he used the pen name Jehu O'Cataract.
Shortly after Neal traveled to England in 1823, he met Jeremy Bentham, the philosopher, who hired him as his secretary. While in England, Neal wrote a series of five articles on 135 American writers for Blackwood's Magazine. This is noteworthy, as the Blackwood editors had no use for American writers or writing. Although riddled with error, the series is considered the first effort to chronicle and explain American literature and was reprinted as American Writers in 1937.
When Neal returned to Portland in 1827, he opened the city's first gymnasium as he had become a strong proponent of physical well being as a means of advancing social and political well being. Neal, who was an early advocate for equal rights for minorities and women, severed his relationship with the gym when the majority of members would not support his nomination of African-Americans for membership. He established gymnasiums in other Maine cities and taught boxing and bowling at Bowdoin College.
In addition to his writing, Neal was also known as an editor, architect, lawyer, historian, and women's rights advocate. He wrote numerous magazine articles on American artists and is considered one of the United States' first major art critics. Although a strong opponent of dueling, he was not against using his fist or his physical strength to challenge an opponent. One of the more frequently cited Neal stories is one in which he, at 79 years old, is noted for throwing a defiant cigar-smoking passenger off a street car.
Neal's published works include:
Biographical and critical studies of John Neal include:
Commentary on and quotes from Neal's novels and poems can be found in the 1856 Cyclopaedia of American Literature. In addition, early twentieth-century critical assessment of Neal's literary worth can be found in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature.
Helen Nearing was born in Ridgewood, NJ, the middle child of intellectual middle-class parents. Helen travelled widely as a child and teenager, took music lessons, and was well-educated. Her early life is described in detail in her book Loving and Leaving the Good Life.
Helen met Scott Nearing briefly in 1921, then again in 1928, and they were together from that time on, only marrying in 1947 when Scott's first wife, Nellie Seeds, from whom he was separated, died. They left New York City in 1932 to live in rural southern Vermont, where they homesteaded and ran a maple-sugaring business for 19 years. They moved to Harborside, Maine, in 1952, where they again built their own house and outbuildings and began a business raising blueberries. Their homesteading days are also well-chronicled in their books.
The Nearings names are on a bronze plaque around the Pacifist Memorial at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Mass. Their home in Harborside, Forest Farm, is now the Good Life Center, which hosts Monday night meetings, free tours, and workshops. For more info, call 207.326.8211.
Books written by Helen Nearing include:
Books co-authored by Scott and Helen Nearing:
Scott and Helen also wrote a regular Mother Earth News column in the 1960s and 1970s.
Jean Hay's Web site contains an article about being the Nearings' close neighbour. A video about Helen Nearing has been produced, and she recorded a 90-minute audiotape in 1994 called The Good Life of Helen Nearing. Ellen LaConte, who spent a lot of time with Helen in her later years, published a book about her called On Light Alone (1996). Two articles by Helen, "At the End of A Good Life" and "Going It Alone," are available on-line, through In Context magazine.
Scott Nearing -- economist, homesteader, orator, and prolific writer -- was born to a wealthy family in a Pennsylvania mining town (Morris Run) in 1883. By 1905, he was speaking out on liberal issues, including the treatment and working conditions of miners. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton College of Economics in 1906 and taught at the school until he was fired in 1915 for his outspoken opposition to child labor. He taught in 1916-1917 at the Univ. of Toledo in Ohio -- the only college that would take him -- until he was also fired from this school for his anti-war stance. Nearing's private papers were seized by the Justice Department (pre-FBI) in 1916. He was charged under the Espionage Act in 1917 for his opposition to WWI, as evidenced in his tract, The Great Madness, and was tried in Feb. 1919. Nearing saw the trial as a chance to educate and, an eloquent orator, he provided most of his own defense; he was acquited after 30 hours of deliberation. Nearing never had a formal full-time job after this and most magazines and newspapers, including The Nation, Saturday Evening Post, The New York Times, and The Christian Science Monitor refused to publish his articles. Nearing eventually started his own news service, Federated Press, and his World Events newsletter. Many of his books are self-published.
Nearing joined the Socialist party in 1917 and ran for Congress on that ticket in 1918, losing by a large margin to his challenger. He left the Socialist party in 1922 because they denounced the Soviet Union. He joined the Communist party in 1927, but left them too, in 1930, when his writings were deemed to clash with Lenin's writings. Nearing spoke out and wrote on many subjects in the early years of his life, from the dangers of big business, fascism, and war to the plight of women, children, and blacks in America.
Scott Nearing and Helen Knothe (Nearing) met briefly in 1921, then again in 1928, and they were together from that time on, only marrying in 1947 when Scott's first wife, Nellie Seeds, from whom he was separated, died. They left New York City in 1932 to live in rural southern Vermont, where they homesteaded and ran a maple-sugaring business for 19 years. They moved to Harborside, Maine, in 1952, where they again built their own house and outbuildings and began a business raising blueberries. Their homesteading days are well-chronicled in their books.
Scott died by self-starvation at Harborside on August 24, 1983. Many of his books are now being reissued as the wisdom of his prescient words is recognised by some in the current generation. The Nearings' names are on a bronze plaque around the Pacifist Memorial at the Peace Abbey in Sherborn, Mass. Their home in Harborside, Forest Farm, is now the Good Life Center, which hosts Monday night meetings, free tours, and workshops. For more info, call 207.326.8211.
Books written by Scott Nearing include:
Books co-authored by Scott and Helen Nearing:
Scott and Helen also wrote a regular Mother Earth News column in the 1960s and 1970s.
Some of the books written about Scott Nearing include:
Jean Hay has written a great biographical introduction to Scott Nearing, "The Personal Price of Free Speech, " available on-line through her site. Hay's Web site also contains an article about being the Nearings' close neighbour. There is also a lot of biographical information on Scott Nearing in Helen Nearing's book Loving and Leaving the Good Life
Jim Nelson was born and raised in Lewiston, by parents who both taught English, his father at Bates College and his mother at Lewiston High School. Nelson left Maine at eighteen to travel around the country. After graduating from UCLA Film School, he worked for several years in Hollywood, hoping to become a screenwriter, then "ran away to sea," working as a professional sailor and rigger on ships around the U.S. His writing career began in 1992, and he eventually returned to Maine, living now in South Harpswell with his wife Lisa, also a former traditional sailor, and two children. Nelson's website provides biography; book summaries, background, and chapters; photos; news; and more. The replica frigate H.M.S. Rose website provides some background on Nelson's sailing career, as does a Boothbay Register 1998 article about Nelson.
Nelson's writing three series of historical nautical books. These are:
The Biddlecomb Saga / The Revolution At Sea Saga:
The Brethren of the Coast Trilogy (Nelson says he plans to write a prequel):
The Bowater Series (initially, Nelson planned to write one book about the Confederate Navy and the second about the Union Navy, but now he is planning a series on Samuel Bowater and crew):
He also wrote The Only Life that Mattered (2004), a novel based on the lives of the real-life women pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Nelson originally published this book under the pseudonym Elizabeth Garrett, and it was titled The Sweet Trade (2002). In 2006, he published a Civil War novel, Benedict Arnold's Navy, The Ragtag Fleet that Lost the Battle of Valcour Island but Won the American Revolution.
Nelson has also written the non-fiction Reign of Iron: The Story of the First Battling Ironclads, the Monitor and the Merrimack (2004).
Jim Nichols is a native Mainer, born in Brunswick and raised in Freeport, who lives now in Warren with his wife, Anne and Sam, the Springer Spaniel. When he's not writing, he works for Telford Aviation at the airport in Owls Head.
In 2000, Nichols' short story "Slow Monkeys" won the Willamette Fiction Prize. He won fifth prize in 1997 for a story in American Fiction Volume 9 -- The Best Unpublished Short Stories by Emerging Writers (Joyce Carol Oates was guest judge), and in 1993 won second prize for a story, "Jon-Clod,", submitted to the River City Writing Awards for Fiction. His short stories have appeared in Esquire, Puckerbrush review, Paris Transcontinental, ELF, River City, and other magazines. His story collection Slow Monkey and Other Stories (2002) features ordinary people in ordinary settings living extraordinary lives. It was reviewed in the New York Times in Oct. 2002 and in the April 2003 issue of Down East magazine.
Nye was a well-known humorist born in Shirley, Maine; he spent much of his life out west and in New York. There's a page of biographical background on Nye (with an example of his writing) from the 1888 edition of Prominent Men and Women of the Day online, and you can read Mark Twain's introduction of Nye (and James W. Riley) at an event in Boston in 1888 on the Mining Co.'s site. The University of Virginia's Library's Special Collections Dept. has 20 letters, 6 manuscripts, and 4 photos of Nye in it archives, and the Library of Congress's Manuscript Division has 50 items of correspondence, notes, drawings, and other papers.
Nye's books include:
"Down East" magazine, October 1955, has an article on " Bill Nye, Humorist of the Gay Nineties."
Annie O'Brien lives on Peaks Island, Maine, and is a children's book writer and illustrator. She grew up in a bi-cultural society as the daughter of American medical missionaries in Korea, and she has taught Korean at the Korean United Methodist Church in Portland. She earned her B.A. (cum laude) from Mount Holyoke College in 1975. She is active in diversity education in schools nationwide. For more on O'Brien and information on contacting her for teacher workshops or classroom presentations, see Tilbury House publishers' Web site (also provides information on Margy Burns Knight, a frequent collaborator with O'Brien). For more on O'Brien and Knight as classroom presenters, see the Maine Association of School Libraries Author and Illustrator page.
Books written and illustrated by O'Brien include:
Books only illustrated by O'Brien include:
The fifth graders at Cape Elizabeth Middle School host a page dedicated to the Talking Walls project, which "connects literature, geography, culture, and kids." The site has links for unit plans and teacher guides based on the book.
Ogilvie was born in Boston and raised in Dorchester and Wollaston, MA, summering on the island of Criehaven in Maine. She lived in Cushing, Maine, and wintered in a farmhouse on 33 acres on Gay Island, off Friendship, where she lived with longtime companion (and another Maine writer) Dorothy Simpson for many years. Ogilvie wrote 46 adult, young adult, and children's books, most of them set in Maine, although her Jennie Glenroy series is set in Scotland, the place she called her second favorite after Maine. For more information on Ogilvie, read her autobiographical work, My World is An Island (1950/1990).
Ogilvie's books for adults include:
Her books for children include:
Marilyn Westervelt and Melissa Hayes published a book, A Mug-Up with Elisabeth: A Companion for Readers of Elisabeth Ogilvie (2001), which includes a biography, samples from her early writings, and synopses of all her published works.
Food historian Sandy Oliver lives on Isleboro with her spouse Jamie MacMillan, and is the editor and publisher of the quarterly newsletter Food History News. She has been involved with the history of American foodways since 1971 when she began the fireplace cooking program at Mystic Seaport Museum. She is a frequent lecturer/panelist/consultant at museums such as Historic Deerfield, Strawbery Banke, and Penobscot Marine Museum. She commented at length about her frugal, self-sustainable ways in a March 2003 article.
She has presented papers for the Culinary Historians of Washington D.C. and also for its Boston equivalent. She is the author of the highly regarded Saltwater Foodways which received the 1996 Jane Grigson Award for Scholarship in the Julia Child Cookbook Awards. She is also the author of Food in Colonial and Federal America (2005) and, with Kathleen Curtin, wrote Giving Thanks: Thanksgiving Recipes and History, from Pilgrims to Pumpkin Pie (2005).
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 publications, 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 (reviewed), 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.
Nina (pronounced Nine-Uh) Osier, aka Marianne Barron, was born in Camden, Maine. Her first home was on Friendship Long Island, off the Maine coast. She graduated from New Hampshire College, and worked as a high school teacher and as an accountant, before becoming Director of the Division of Records Management at the Maine State Archives. She lives now in Sidney, Maine. Osier has authored a number of science fiction books, e-books, novellas, and stories, as well as a romantic saga and a book of pet stories. Osier's website includes online excerpts from most of her books, summaries, and a photo. Most of her books are published by iUniverse or Xlibris, both of which print copies on demand. A short interview with Osier is available through sffworld.com
Publications include:
Osier also writes Star Trek Voyager fan fiction, which is available from Unicorn Press, in zine format, under the name Marianne Barron.
Before moving to Portland in the mid 1990s, maritime historian Lincoln Paine was employed in the publishing industry in New York. He was a senior editor at Facts on File and was editor of Sea History Magazine. A graduate of Philips Exeter and Columbia University, he is a member of the national advisory board of the American Sail Training Association. In 2000, he was Portland's OpSail's education committee co-chairman and wrote the sailing celebration's book, Down East: A Maritime History of Maine.
His other books are Ships of the World: An Historical Encyclopedia (1997), Ships of Discovery and Exploration (2000), and Warships of the World to 1900 (2000).
Paine's research and writing are widely recognized and he has presented papers as far away as Australia. He briefly maintained a weblog, which provides maritime history links.
Poet and children's book writer Mary Palmer is a native of West Baldwin, grew up in Buxton, and now lives in South Paris, Maine. She received a B.S. from the Gorham State Teachers College, taught for 35 years, and is a past president of both the Poetry Fellowship of Maine and the Maine Poets' Society.
Palmer's books for children include: Mother Moose Rhymes (1986/1988; illus. by Patrick Davis), More Mother Moose Rhymes (1987, illus. by Patrick Davis), As Clean As A Whistle (1990, illus. by Liana Palmer-Poirier), Sharing Secrets (1991, illus. by Liana Palmer-Poirier), and The Complete Mother Moose (1997, including verses never before published). She's published a book of poetry for adults, Poems Downeast (1994, photos by Cy Palmer), and she also wrote an adaptation of C.A. Stephens' The Jonah (1995). In 2003, she published a collection of memories of growing up on the Snell Farm in Buxton, Maine, titled Kid Sisters Never Forget: Remember the Great Depression.
Sara Willis was born Grata Payson Willis in Portland in 1811, the sister of Nathaniel Willis; she changed her first name to Sara early in her life. Their father, also Nathaniel Willis, founded Youth's Companion in 1827. Willis was educated in Boston and then worked for her father's magazine until her marriage to Charles H. Eldredge in 1837; he died in 1846. She then married Samuel P. Farrington in 1849, divorcing him in 1852. By this time, she was contributing articles to periodicals under the pseudonym "Fanny Fern," and in 1853 a collection of her pieces was published as Fern Leaves from Fanny's Port-Foliio; this sold 80,000 copies and was followed by Fern Leaves in 1854 and Little Fern Leaves for Fanny's Little Friends in 1854, for children.
In 1855 Willis began to write a weekly column for the New York Ledger, for $100 per column; she was one of the first women columnists, and she continued this association until she died, commenting on daily affairs with satire and wit. She married James Parton, a biographer, in 1856, and the couple lived in New York City. There is an entry on Willis in Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present (ed. Robert McHenry, 1983).
Willis's books include:
William Pattangall, born in Pembroke, Maine, was a newspaper editor, writer, lawyer, and judge. An 1884 University of Maine graduate, he studied law for a short period after college and then spent time working in shoe factories and aboard ships. He returned to his studies and was admitted to the bar in 1893. He established a law practice in Machias and was elected to the Maine House of Representatives in 1897 and 1901. After moving to Waterville, he was again elected to the House in 1909 and 1911. During his second term representing Waterville, he was appointed Attorney General and reappointed in 1912, 1915, and 1916. In 1926 he was appointed to the Maine Superior Court and selected as the Chief Justice in 1931. He retired in 1934.
In addition to his political career, Pattangall is noted as a political satirist whose caustic comments were greatly feared by the many Maine politicians he lampooned. Using the penname Stephen A. Douglas Smith, Pattangall published a series of biting letters, called the "Meddybemps Letters," in the Machias Union newspaper, of which he was the editor from 1903 to 1909. A second series, "Maine Hall of Fame," which consisted of short biographies of the state's leading politicians, was published in the Waterville Sentinel in 1909 and 1910 (and in book form in 1916); he also was the editor of the Sentinel. In 1924, Lewiston journalist Arthur G. Staples collected and published the letters in book form. The Meddybemps Letters is included in the Mirror of Maine; the selection committee viewed Pattangall as "the most insightful and clever deflator of egos and careers that Maine has ever produced."
Portland resident Elizabeth Peavey grew up in Maine, left, and returned. She's a columnist, journalist, and editor, serving as contributing editor for Down East magazine from 1997 to the present. Her book, Maine and Me: Ten Years of Down East Adventures (2004), is a compilation of her writing for Down East magazine. Her second book, Outta My Way: An Odd Life Lived Loudly, is a collection of humourous essays written for the Casco Bay Weekly. She also wrote the chapter on Maine for Fodor's Road Guide USA (2001). Peavey teaches public speaking at University of Southern Maine and writing workshops for Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance. Previously, she taught creative nonfiction at the University of Maine at Farmington. She writes a monthly column for The Bollard, a Portland publication.
Now living mostly in Lawrenceburg, TN, this Allagash native hasn't lived in Maine year-round in over 20 years, although she has taught writing at University of Maine-Farmington and she received her B.A. from the University of Maine. Pelletier is the author of bleak yet funny novels that are usually set in northern Maine: The Funeral Makers (1986), Once Upon A Time Upon the Banks (1989), The Weight of Winter (1991), The Bubble Reputation (1993; title from "As You Like It"), A Marriage Made at Woodstock (1994; set in Portland), Beaming Sonny Home (1996), The Christmas Note (1997), and Running the Bulls (2005).
She also writes under the pen name of K. C. McKinnon (the McKinnon comes from her grandmother's name, Augusta McKinnon), publishing Dancing at the Harvest Moon (1997/1999) and Candles on Bay Street (1999/2000), set in Fort Kent, Maine; Jacqueline Bisset stars in the film version of Dancing at the Harvest Moon. Her next book under the pen name will be titled Visiting Camilla. Pelletier's also the founder of Nashville Books, a small publishing company in her adopted hometown of Brentwood (where she lived until 2002); Nashville Books publishes non-fiction books about country music and country music stars. Pelletier authored A Country Music Christmas, reprinted in 1996 by Crown Publishing. She also co-wrote The Christmas Note (1997) with country singer Skeeter Davis. She and her husband Tom Viorikic formed a production company, Luna Productions.
Born and raised in Blue Hill, the younger sister of Mary Ellen Chase, Virginia Chase graduated from the University of Minnesota and got her MA from Wayne State University. She and her husband lived for a while in Connecticut, where she taught at Hartford College. In 1940, Chase won the Avery Hopwood Award for fiction. Her works include fiction: The American House (1944), Discovery (1948), The End of the Week (1953), and One Crow, Two Crows (1971), as well as non-fiction: The Writing of Modern Prose (1936), and a work for children: The Knight of the Golden Fleece (1959). Some of her works are collected in Speaking of Maine: Selections from the Writings of Virginia Chase (1983).
Sandy Phippen grew up in Hancock Point, graduated from the University of Maine in 1964, received a Master's degree from Syracuse University, and taught English in the public schools of central New York for fifteen years before returning to Maine. Phippen teaches English at Orono High School and is a columnist for the "Maine Times," an essayist, and a writer of fiction.
Phippen's works include:
He's also edited the fiction collection The Best Maine Stories: The Marvelous Mystery (1986/1994; with Charles Waugh and Martin Harry Greenberg) and the non-fiction High Clouds Soaring, Storms Driving Low: The Letters of Ruth Moore (1993).
Phippen hosts the Maine Public TV show 'A Good Read,' on which he was also featured as a writer; the MPTV website has biographical information on Phippen, as well as excerpts from his books and a list of his favourite works. His essay, "Missing from the Books: My Maine," is online.
Mary Green was born in Eastport, Maine, and went to school in Calais. In 1845 she married Frederick A. Pike, a lawyer from Calais. The Pikes lived in Calais most of their lives, except for eight years in Washington DC (1861-1869) when he was in Congress, and a few years in Europe afterwards. After her husband died in 1866, Pike moved to Plainfield, NJ. She died in Baltimore, MD in 1908.
Pike's first novel was published in 1854, Ida May; A Story of Things Actual and Possible, under the pseudonym "Mary Langdon." It was a melodrama about a wealthy white girl kidnapped and sold into slavery; it was a popular success, selling 60,000 copies and appearing in British and German editions. Other books were Caste: A Story of Republican Equality (1856; under the name "Sydney A. Story, Jr.") and Agnes (1858), historical fiction with an Indian protagonist. Pike was also a contributor to Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, and Graham's. Later in life, she became a landscape painter.
Plourde, a native of Dexter and now a Winthrop resident, has always lived in Maine. She earned a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Maine. A school speech therapist for twenty years, her first publishing efforts include educational texts such as Classroom Listening and Speaking (1985/1995), a series of program and activity books written for the classroom teacher, followed by Clas [Classroom Learning and Speaking] Preschool (1989), Clas by Themes (1990) and others.
In an Amazon.com author interview (no longer linked), Plourde said she was first aware of picture books when she became the stepmother of three-year-old and four-year-old boys. Thoroughly taken with the joys of good picture books, she began writing her own stories. She persevered through thirteen years of rejection slips before her first picture book, Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud (1997), was accepted and published.
In 1999, she published two books: the beautiful Wild Child and the humorous Moose, Of Course! (illus. Jim Sollers). Plourde wrote about her collaboration with Greg Couch, Wild Child's illustrator, in an article titled "The Other Parent of My Book" for the November/December 1999 Maine In Print. Other Plourde books include Winter Waits (2000; illus. Greg Couch); Snow Day (2001; illus. Hideko Takahashi); Spring's Sprung (2002; illus. Greg Couch); School Picture Day (2002/2005; ill. Thor Wickstrom); Grandpappy Snippy Snappies (2002; ill. Christopher Santoro); Summer's Vacation (2003; illus. Greg Couch); Teacher Appreciation Day (2003/2005; illus. Thor Wickstrom); Thank You, Grandpa (2003; illus. Jason Cockcroft), The First Feud: Between the Mountain and the Sea (2003; illus. Jim Sollers), an original fable about a feud between the mighty mountain Katahdin and the great Atlantic Ocean; Mother, May I? (2004); Pajama Day (2005; illus. Thor Wickstrom), another in the Mrs. Shepherd's class series; Dad, Aren't You Glad? (2005; illus. Amy Wummer), a companion book to Mother, May I?
Influenced by her grandmother's recent death, Plourde's Thank You and Good-Bye (2000) focuses on a child's understanding and acceptance of death. Winter Waits (2001; illus. Greg Couch), a companion book to autumn's Wild Child, is the second of what Plourde hopes will be a series about the four seasons.
Plourde, one of the Maine Arts Commission's visiting artists, has received enthusiastic responses to her program presented in Maine schools and libraries.
Maine writer Jack Barnes included Plourde's books in his 1998 annual review of the best in that year's Maine children's books. The positive response to her books, however, extends far beyond the state of Maine. Pigs in the Mud in the Middle of the Rud is found on a number of national and regional Best Books lists such as the Chicago Public Library's "1997 Best of the Best;" and a Garrison, New York school/library bibliography. Wild Child can be found on the 1999 American Booksellers Association's "Children's Pick of the List."
In addition to writing picture books, Plourde, with her husband, Paul Knowles, wrote A Celebration of Maine's Children's Books (1998); it focuses on what they consider the best 185 Maine children's books in print and contains plot summaries, biographical information, and learning activities for each title.
In January 2005, Islandport Press in Yarmouth announced that they'll publish Plourde’s latest work, At One, an illustrated children’s book that "celebrates Maine’s inspirational beauty from the wilds of Baxter State Park to the crashing waves of the Atlantic. All of the scenes featured in At One were inspired by Plourde’s experiences."
Plourde's website has contact info.
Ethel Pochocki was born and raised in Bayonne, NJ. She lives now in Brooks, Maine. She raised 8 children and has written over 30 children's books, including Penny for a Hundred (1996), which is based on actual events in Aroostook County during World War II. Pochocki also writes for Cricket and Church World. A photo of Pochocki and more information about her are available through her publisher's Web site.
Pochocki's books include:
A story by Pochocki, titled 'A Christmas Tree Lands A Second Starring Role,' appears in the 26 December 2002 issue of the Christian Science Monitor.
Bern Porter was born in Maine and graduated from Colby College in 1932. He went on to get an M.S. from Brown University and worked as a physicist on cathrode ray tube technology before WWII; when the war came, Bern was drafted for uranium separation work on the Manhattan Project, a job he quit after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in Aug. 1945.
From 1944-1948 he and George Leite published the literary magazine "Circle 10," and Porter also published Henry Miller's anti-war tract, "Murder the Murderers," the first U.S. publisher of Miller. He actively promoted and published other writers under Bern Porter Books publishing company, at the same time developing his own art, including poetry, found poetry ("founds"), sound poetry, performance art, experimental essays, surrealistic photographs, collages, mail art, architectural sketches, and found sculpture. Porter has also worked again as a physicist, on NASA's Saturn V manned space project, all the while working on an integration of science and art, formally developed in his Sciart Mainfesto (1950). He's also the founder of the Institute for Advanced Thinking, a network of non-academic scholars in various arts.
James Schevill wrote a 1992 biography of Porter, the title -- Where to Go, What to Do, When You are Bern Porter -- a take-off on one of Porter's own titles. The book has a lengthy bibliography and numerous photos of Porter and of his work. There's also a fairly long description of Porter's writing (especially his poetry) and biographical background provided by Penn State's physics dept. An interview with Porter is available in the book Bern! Porter! Interview! (1983; conducted by Margaret Dunbar). Porter's official website offers some images, biographical and bibliographical information, and some poems.
Porter's works, in addition to those listed above, include:
His drawings and photographs appear in the following:
Prentiss was born and raised in Portland, the daughter of a Congregational minister. Before her marriage, she opened her own school (at age 19) and taught at a private girls' school for a few years, but ill health prevented her from continuing her work. She married George Lewis Prentiss, also a Congregational minister, in 1845, and gave birth to 6 children (2 died young). During her lifetime she lived in Richmond, VA, New Bedford, MA, Newark, NJ, and Switzerland (1858-1860), but her primary home was in New York City, with a summer home in Dorset, VT, where Prentiss died. There is an entry on Prentiss in Famous American Women: A Biographical Dictionary from Colonial Times to the Present (ed. Robert McHenry, 1983). Diedre Johnson's Girls Series Page also has information on Prentiss. For a bibliography and fan perspective on Prentiss, try Jeremey Huggins' Stepping Heavenward page on Prentiss; his background is a photo of Prentiss's Vermont summer home.
Prentiss published her first story in 1834, when she was 16, but didn't write again for publication until the 1850s, after the deaths of two of her children. She published stories in Youth's Companion, The New York Observer, and others. The first in her Little Susy series was published in 1853, Little Susy's Six Birthdays, followed by Little Susy's Six Teachers (1856) and Little Susy's Little Servants (1856). This series was popular in its time and appeared in both British and French editions. Prentiss also wrote adult books and hymns. Her most popular novel for adults was titled Stepping Heavenward. Her best-known hymn is "More Love To Thee, O Christ."
Prentiss's books include:
Doug Preston lives in Round Pond, Maine, with his wife, Christine. He was born in Cambridge, Mass., raised in Wellesley, attended the Cambridge School of Weston, and graduated with honours from Pomona College (Claremont, CA), in 1978, with a degree in English literature. He's worked as manager of publications for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City; as writing instructor at Princeton University; as managing editor for the journal Curator; as a columnist for Natural History magazine; and as archaeology correspondent for the New Yorker. He started writing full-time in 1986, moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, from the east coast. In the early 2000s, he spent a lot of time in Florence, Italy, before moving back to family property in Maine. His brother, Richard Preston, is author of The Hot Zone and The Cobra Event.
There's lots more information about Douglas Preston online, including an AudioFile interview (Dec. 2005), a long article by John Orr about Preston and collaborator Lincoln Child in Aug. 2004; an interview with both writers at Barnes & Noble, naming favourite books, films, music; and of course the Preston-Child website.
Preston's work on a non-fiction book (with Italian journalist Mario Spezi), about the case of a serial killer known as the Monster of Florence, who murdered fourteen people in the hills of Florence from 1974 to 1985, has caused him legal trouble in Italy in 2006, including being arrested and charged as an accessory to murder. You can read about it here, or at the Boston Globe as long as the link lasts. Or listen to his story at MobyLives Radio in mp3 format/Quicktime (taped March 11, 2006; the interview with Preston starts about 1/3 of the way into the recording).
Preston's books are both non-fiction and fiction titles, including thrillers that incorporate science and history arcana co-written with collaborator Lincoln Child (Child calls their books "techno-thrillers with a frisson of the supernatural"):
Trudy (Gertrude) Chambers Price is a native of The County (Aroostook). Born in Island Falls, she grew up in Caribou. A 1962 graduate of the University of Maine, she, with her husband Ron, was a dairy farmer from 1966 to 1989 in Knox, Maine. For two of those years, she was, to use her words, a reluctant teacher whose reason for teaching was to help pay the bills. She wrote of her family’s farming experiences in The Cows Are Out! Two Decades on a Maine Dairy Farm (2004).
Poems about her parents, "Mother’s Day, May 10, 1998," "Memorial Day," and "Driving North" can be read on the Franco American Women’s Institute ezine. A brief excerpt from The Cows are Out! is also available on the publisher’s website.
Price is the manager of the Maine Coast Book Shop in Damariscotta. She is well known to many Maine readers and writers from her prior work at the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance.
Kelli Pryor is a celebrity journalist who has worked for Picture Week magazine, New York magazine and Entertainment Weekly (1989-1993). Raised in the Ozarks, in Carterville, MO, and a graduate of the University of Missouri, Pryor has lived since 1993 on Lake Arrowhead in Limerick, Maine, with her husband, Andrew Rosenstein, also a writer. Besides the two works of non-fiction she's co-authored under the name Pryor -- No Words to Say Goodbye (1994, with Raimonda Kopelnitsky), about a young Soviet-Jewish girl adapting to life in America, and For Real: The Uncensored Truth About America's Teenagers (1995, with Jane Pratt, former editor of Sassy magazine), profiles of American teens and their issues -- Pryor has also written three romances under the pseudonym Annie Garrett.
As Garrett, she's published Angel Falling Too Close to the Ground in 1995, which met with mixed reviews (negative review of Angel Falling) -- the character of the country music star/ first love is rumoured to be based on Randy Travis; Because I Wanted You (1997); and <">After You (1998), set on a Maine island, which also met with mixed reviews and to which Pryor has sold the screenplay rights to Dreamworks Studios (review of After You from Bookbrowser).
A photo of Pryor is available through RomanticTimes.com.
Pullen, born in Amity, Maine, graduated from Colby College and from Ricker Classical Institute in 1935 and served as an Army captain during World War II. He worked as a newspaper reporter in Maine and as an advertising vice president in Philadelphia, PA before retiring in 1965 to devote himself to writing. He was one of Maine's most highly respected Civil War historians. His Twentieth Maine: A Volunteer Regiment in the Civil War is a masterful combination of scholarship and dramatic narrative. First published in 1957 and re-issued numerous times, it tells the story of the Twentieth Maine, commanded by Joshua Chamberlain, and its decisive role in the Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg. The book is included in The Mirror of Maine as it "has influenced the nation's views of Maine's contribution to the war."
Pullen's other Civil War publications include:
Pullen also published Patriotism in America: A Study of Changing Devotions, 1770-1970 (1971); The Transcendental Boiled Dinner (1972), and Comic Relief: The Life and Laughter of Artemus Ward, 1834-1867 (1983).
He died at home in Brunswick, Maine, on 25 Feb. 2003.
