Working Waterfront

The play’s the thing

One of the purposes for which I was hired to come teach on North Haven, nigh on 12 years ago, was to direct plays. The theater program, formalized by the school's relationship with John Wulp, had achieved some renown through original programming and attention paid to contemporary classics by Brecht… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Peter Ralston’s ‘Pentecost’ named Maine’s ‘most iconic’ image

You know the image. Prints have been sold on every continent but Antarctica. And you know it because it tells a story, a story that resonates both with those visiting our state and those who have lived here for generations. “Pentecost,” as Peter Ralston called the photograph he shot that… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A wife tells her husband’s abuse story

Dirt Roads & Diner Pie by Shonna Milliken Humphrey Published by Central Recovery Press, 2016 The title Dirt Roads & Diner Pie suggests a travel guide, tips for a trip off the beaten path, advice for a journey into the heart and soul of a place, with a chance to… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Available Light: The intersection of poetry and Castine

Available Light: Philip Booth and the Gift of Place Jeanne Braham; Bauhan Publishing, Peterborough, New Hampshire, 2016; color photographs; 144 pages, paperback, $23.95. In the mid-1980s, Island Institute co-founder Philip Conkling traveled to Castine to interview Philip Booth for an upcoming issue of the Institute's Island Journal. Booth, Conkling later… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

A love letter to the seasons

Summer To Fall: Notes and Numia from the Maine Woods Dana Wilde/North Country Press 2016 Remember in the film Jerry Maguire when Dorothy says, “You had me at hello…”? Author Dana Wilde had me at the first paragraph of the preface when he writes: “…this book is about the transit… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Mainer roots teased out in ‘Salt in Their Veins’

Salt in Their Veins: Conversations with coastal Mainers (As told to Charlie Wing… published by Charlie Wing Books, 2016) Before Salt in Their Veins, Charlie Wing was already a published author of books about “things,” including how things work in homes and boats (and while I’m oversimplifying the topics, those… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Cultural close encounter delights island students

A concern that we sometimes have as educators on a fairly isolated island in Penobscot Bay is how our students will react and behave when suddenly confronted with a new group of people. This could be a group of people from as nearby as Vinalhaven or Rockland—our students are sometimes… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Postcards from paradise… or Eden

Forever Yours, Bar Harbor: Historic Postcard Images of Mount Desert Island and Acadia Islandport Press, Yarmouth, Maine. Softbound, $14.95 Earl Brechlin The study and collecting of postcards is called deltiology, a term coined by one Prof. Randall Rhoades of Ashland, Ohio, in 1945. Earl Brechlin, editor of the Mount Desert… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

Vinalhaven print artist’s work featured at Farnsworth

Vinalhaven artist Chris Clarke is having a fabulous year. Clarke was recently approached by the Farnsworth Art Museum to loan two of his pieces for its current exhibit, "The Art of Disaster," and in August, he celebrated the 10th anniversary of his Engine House Press. "It's thrilling," says Clarke of… SEE MORE

Working Waterfront

E.B. White was indeed ‘Some Writer’

E.B. White was a writer’s writer. He wrote poetry, columns for magazines like The New Yorker and Harper’s—essays, really, and in a style that remains in vogue 70 years later—and, of course, children’s books like Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web. He literally wrote the book on writing, too, building on… SEE MORE