Working Waterfront

Making sense of Maine ‘talking circles’

The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations By Shirley N. Hager and Mawopiyane, University of Toronto Press I confess to being skeptical when I opened The Gatherings: Reimagining Indigenous-Settler Relations, a book of reflections on a series of “gatherings” of white and Native people in Maine and Maritime Canada in the 1980s… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Cruising the world with and for art

The sea has inspired countless artists, but few have seen as much of it as Alan Fishman and Marcie Jan Bronstein, a Belfast couple who have cruised the world. Though they have owned boats as a couple for 30 years, most of their sea-art adventures came aboard Celebrity Cruise ships.… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

‘Call Me American’ author to speak in Friendship Aug. 22

Abdi Nor Iftin’s life story is an inspiring tale of resilience, courage, and luck, and he will share it with an audience at the Hahn Community Center in Friendship on Sunday, Aug. 22 at 4 p.m. His parents were nomadic herders in Somalia, but Iftin grew up mostly in the… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Treatment plan: Tour the U.S. on a Harley

I can’t help but imagine how the discussion about Donna Wiegle’s book might have gone at a big-time publishing house. “The writer has stage IV ovarian cancer, and she writes about her courage in facing this diagnosis? And there’s a motorcycle involved? How are we supposed to sell this?! Who… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Artists and makers prepare for reboot

Maine’s beauty and diversity has long inspired a plethora of art and craft. Maine’s artists and makers are a varied bunch—whether crafting beer in Southern Maine, cutting earrings from recycled olive oil tins in the Midcoast, blending body care products from dulse, or painting abstractions of Downeast seascapes, they are… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Getting to know our greenery

Wildflowers of Maine Islands: The Downeast and Acadia Coasts By Glen H. Mittelhauser; University of Maine Press, 2021 Every April and May in Maine the world starts to turn color again. But differently in different geographies, we gather from Glenn Mittelhauser’s new guide, Wildflowers of Maine Islands. “There is much… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Urban stories told with an urban attitude

Why I Don’t Write and Other Stories By Susan Minot; 176 pages, hardcover, $25. In American short fiction of the past 50 or 60 years, there is to my ear a certain distinct prose style that a lot of creative writing types work hard to emulate, often, or usually, or… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The woman behind the ‘hidden’ food

Finding Freedom: A Cook’s Story Remaking a Life From Scratch By Erin French You’ve probably heard of Erin French. She started off in Belfast hosting “secret suppers” in her apartment, and then moved into the space downstairs which she turned into a restaurant. With the loss of that in a… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Robert Indiana’s Maine misadventures

The Isolation Artist: Scandal, Deception, and the Last Days of Robert Indiana By Bob Keyes Born Robert Earl Clark in Newcastle, Indiana, in 1928, the famed “Love” artist changed his name in 1958 not long after moving to New York City—a way to pay homage to his home state, but… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

The truth is out there… or not

Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act By Nicholson Baker; Penguin Press, 2020 One of my many unproven cultural theories that hasn’t changed much for decades goes like this: In 1914 the world went insane. It showed no signs of recovering until the… SEE MORE