However dimmed, deferred, or deleted by the coronavirus, Maine’s bicentennial marches on. The milestone is providing an opportunity to claim pride and/or acknowledge failings in our history, to draw lessons from our past, to highlight the ups and downs and in-betweens. For journalist-historian Earl Brechlin, the 200th birthday is also an excuse to have fun. Wild! Weird! Wonderful! Maine (Islandport Press,…

One criterion, revealed to me during an adult writing class, that must be present to justify the use of the semicolon is the need for a complete thought on either side…

In a world where every king tide inundates parking lots and building basements, where great white sharks can be found off the rocky shores of the Maine coast, and where…

How often have we at the Island Institute said—like many others throughout Maine—that small business is the backbone of the state. That became clearer than ever in March of this…

The happenstance discovery of a gravestone in her hometown of Brewster, Mass., led Dr. Meadow Dibble to launch a public history initiative devoted to researching and reckoning with New England’s…

Kate Hotchkiss of North Haven has a novel just out, coming at an opportune time when coronavirus has complicated travel and minimized social activities. Reading On Harbor’s Edge: Book One, 1912-1913 could…

It wasn’t just the sound of seagulls and waves lapping against the shore those four years I spent running my family’s Midcoast lobster wharf. There was the whir of impeller blades…

Imagine being able to sit down and swipe your phone above your seafood meal and find out where it was harvested and who handled it along the way. This concept…

I was reminded of this encounter the other night when, at dinner with the object of my own affection, I was enjoying a profoundly delicious shrimp scampi. This memory is…

Shakespeare must have been thinking about small-town life when he observed, “All the world’s a stage.” Though the Bard didn’t say so, it does seem some people are better suited…