Julie works on her third book at a partners desk she shares with her husband

Chatting with Julie Fisher Melton is like taking a virtual round-the-world tour, so don’t do it unless you’re ready to either go where her professional travels have taken her or strap on your best walking shoes and keep up with her as she hikes around Peaks Island. Either way, you’re likely to see the world through her eyes, something that international organizations have sought for years. Julie – a Pomona College alum and doctoral graduate of John Hopkins University – has shared her extensive experience with and research about NGOs (non-government organizations) in two books: The Road from Rio: Sustainable Development and the Nongovernmental Movement in the Third World, Praeger, 1993; and Nongovernments: NGOs and the Political Development of the Third World, Kumarian, 1998. A third book is under contract with her former employer, Kettering Foundation.

Julie’s passion centers on empowering people, collectively, to address problems affecting their lives, their community, and their nation. We’re talking about poverty, unemployment, and every manner of exploitation – not issues for the faint of heart, but then a woman whose career began researching how civil organizations worked in Latin American squatter neighborhoods doesn’t shirk from challenges.

Julie holds a piece of her grandmother's rose medallion porcelain from 1850s China

In “Road from Rio” Julie wrote, “Poverty, population, and environmental degradation ride roughshod over the aspirations and hopes of people everywhere…Third World NGOs will be essential contributors to this process [of survival], provided their remarkable creativity is understood and supported.” As a former consultant for Save the Children, she knows a great deal about the challenges facing a large proportion of the world’s population. When I asked her more about her work, Julie articulated the broad gulf between typical forms of international aid interventions and the local facilitation and empowerment from the grassroots level upward. After researching in Latin America, Argentina, South Africa, and Tajikistan, she’s quite certain that the latter model promises the best potential for sustainable change and improvement in people’s lives.

If you’re looking for inspiration on how to make the world a better place, be thankful that Julie keeps writing.

Twain Braden

When it comes to journeys, Twain Braden knows how to take them – and how to write about them. Professional mariner, lawyer, camp director, and writer, this renaissance man has returned to Peaks Island with his wife, Leah, and their four children after “living “away” since 2003. He returns with several published books and articles to his name with more in the queue.

A graduate of Hobart College and Charleston School of Law, Twain braves not only legal tomes but the unexpected adventures that wilderness trips and sailing the Atlantic Ocean or Caribbean Sea can throw at him. I got to know Twain and Leah as near-neighbors who had a son the same age as my daughter. Our shared stories broadened when my husband helped Twain (then co-owner of Portland Schooner Co with Scott Reischmann), sail the historic schooner Bagheera from Delaware up to its new home in Portland. These days, when he’s not sailing or writing, he’s directing Camp Glen Brook in Marlborough, NH.

Twain has published articles with Wooden Boat, Northern New England Journey, and Ocean Navigator. He also authored The Handbook of Sailing Techniques: Professional Tips, Expert Advice, Essential Skills (2003) and the non-fiction thriller In Peril: A Daring Decision, a Captain’s Resolve, and the Salvage that Made History written with Skip Strong (2003[2005] – both published with The Lyons Press.

Ghosts of the Pioneers

The summer before Twain graduated from law school in the spring of 2007, he and his family embarked upon a cross-country journey that led to the publication of Ghosts of the Pioneers: A Family Search for the Independent Oregon Colony of 1844. Twain blogged as they camped from Charleston to Independence, Miss. and then followed the Oregon Trail. In places, such as along a stretch of Rte 80 in Nebraska, major roads overlay the historic trail’s path. In other more rural areas, wagon wheel ruts remained visible. Twain’s first-person narrative  juxtaposes the story of the Independent Oregon Colony’s arduous journey westward with his family’s own modern-day trip. None other than documentary film director/producer Ken Burns said of Ghost of the Pioneers “This is a wonderful, close-to-the-earth book about the West, that magical place where the best of us met the worst of us and nothing was ever the same.”

Welcome back to The Rock, Twain, where writers are always welcome! We’re looking forward to the news of your next book, already in the hands of a publisher.

Twain's Writing Closet

One of the advantages of living on an island is that we all funnel onto our sturdy ferry and cross the harbor together for a full twenty minutes (each way), a period of time sufficient to catch up on our neighbors’ lives. This counts as one of my favorite things about Peaks Island. On one such crossing Friday, I learned that two of our island authors were embarking for Bangor to present at the Fifth Annual Bangor Book Festival.

Anne Sibley O’Brien and Catherynne Valente joined 33 other authors in 25 events over two days. Annie presented “How Fascinating!: Multi-Culturalism in Children’s Literature” with Margy Burns Knight. Cat led a “Journey into Fantasy” workshop and joined Ellen Booraem and Jennifer Richard Jacobson on the “Creating Characters in Children’s Literature” panel.

Congrats to Annie and Cat for representing our island literary community!

Patricia Erikson

Those of you who know me have probably noticed that my blogging has slowed down lately. I write two blogs – this “Peaks Island Press” and “Heritage in Maine.” Virtually every printed word advising writers how to write well says “write every day!” “Don’t stop for anything!” My performance in this regard lately has been…FLAIL. I won’t argue against the advice that writers should stay in the flow of their writing, but I’ll confess that I just haven’t been able to do it, haven’t been able to write through my pain.

The source of my pain? I could shorthand it and call it “mortality” – that of my parents, in particular. I lost my mother to pancreatic cancer four years ago and it was as though the floor dropped out beneath me. But, as a mother, a wife, and a professional woman, I kept going and going and going…and going. But now, a few years and a 3500 mile move across the country later and my father’s precipitously declining health and loss of mobility and independence fills my life – often with anguish, sometimes with tenderness. Did I say fills my life? I should say it swamps my life. And yet I keep swimming, lifting my head to gulp air deeply as often as I can remember to try. And, I write to all of you even when I can’t move other writing projects forward.

Writing through pain – it’s good therapy, although not necessarily good writing. When I lost my mother, the pain seeped into an essay that has just now been published in Columbia Magazine at the Washington State History Museum. Check it out. It’s titled “Objects of Pain, Objects of Power“. I hope it touches you in some small way.

Michael Steinberg at Trout Pond on Peaks Island

Ancient forests, ghost birds, and intrepid scientists. This might sound like a blurb for Rollins’ sci-fi Amazonia, but instead it describes the non-fiction content of Michael Steinberg’s “Stalking the Ghost Bird: The Elusive, Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Louisiana” (Louisiana State University Press, 2008).

“I was always interested in birds growing up in Missouri. I would read Peterson’s Field Guide every night before bed. Then, once on vacation in Florida, I thought I spotted an ivory-billed woodpecker. Ever since then, I followed the news of sightings.” This love of birds and the environment led Mike into the field of Geography and eventually into a teaching position  at the University of Southern Maine. There his academic writing focused on Mayans in Belize who were adapting their indigenous agricultural traditions to a drug economy. Steinberg and his family were then lured out of state by other opportunities that allowed him to write and publish Stalking the Ghost Bird – a culmination of his lifelong interest in this bird.

Stalking the Ghost Bird

The book recounts how scientists cautiously refused to disclose their rediscovery of the supposedly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker  until, finally, they captured a short video and sound clip of the bird. Publication of their findings in Science triggered frenzied media coverage and controversy among birders and scientists who disagree – and continue to disagree – about whether the bird really exists. Mike’s writing explores the public fascination with this mysterious species.

These days, Mike migrates a fair amount himself, living part-time on Peaks and part-time in Tuscaloosa where he teaches at the University of Alabama. He brings his research and writing to Maine in summer where he enjoys time with his wife and two sons. “We wanted to move back, to move our boys to where lots of families pursue outdoor adventure for themselves and their kids. Maine is that place for us. Definitely.”

Maine’s literary community has led Mike on a different kind of journey; he enrolled in and graduated from the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing, a two-year low residency program based out of the historic Stone House – a waterfront property designed by John Calvin Stevens in 1918. He now appreciates the skills entailed in writing narrative non-fiction.

Traversing a Peaks Island wetland by boardwalk

We won’t need to wait long to read another of his books. I pulled him away from editing his latest manuscript so that we could traverse together the cattails surrounding Peaks Island’s Trout Pond. In between pulling me out of the mud and pointing out a cedar waxwing, he balanced on a jagged boardwalk and described how “A Brook Trout Pilgrimage” (under contract with University of North Carolina Press) recounts his pilgrimage through brook trout habitats from northern Georgia to Labrador. “I’ve gone from the ivory-billed woodpecker to brook trout.” The connection? “They’re both indicator species – one for bottomland forests and the other for cold water habitats.”

Mike and his family join many who have left Peaks, only to return once again. I’d like to think the island’s literary habitat drew him back. Whatever the reason, we’re glad for it.

Book events often involve readings, author signings, and sales, but it’s rare that they entail book making, stepping up to a rowboat picture booth on an island beach, or the gobbling of icy watermelon, but that’s exactly what author/illustrator Jamie Hogan‘s invitation extends to you – the Seven Days of Daisy Beach Party this Saturday on Ferry Beach, Peaks Island.

Along with Kirsten Cappy of Curious City, Jamie has planned the event as a journey into the picture book that features Hogan’s daughter, Daisy,  recently published by DownEast Books.

Author-Illustrator Jamie Hogan

Flatlanders can hop on a Casco Bay Lines ferry, climb down to Ferry Beach tucked under the ferry’s starboard bow, and snatch up your own signed copy of the book before taking a walking tour that visits island scenes featured in the picture book.

SEVEN DAYS OF DAISY BEACH PARTY!
Saturday, June 18th
10:00 AM – 2:00 PM (ongoing)
Ferry Beach, Peaks Island (Beside the Casco Bay Ferry Dock)

The Seven Days of Daisy Beach Party, as well as Dock Day for authors and artisans, are part of the annual PeakFest celebration, Casco Bay’s kickoff to summer Maine style!

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Peaks Fest Graphic by Marty Braun

You know it’s summer in Casco Bay when Peaks Fest rolls around! This coming weekend – June 17-19 – islanders converge at a number of key locations around the island for the festivities. Like last year, the festival will include a Dock Day. One of the festival organizers, Justin Palmer, explained to me that Dock Day was created because “We wanted something with a festive feel. This is about non-profits, artists, authors, and craftspeople showcasing themselves.” A number of authors already plan to display their work, including: Jamie Hogan, Chris Hoppin, Fran Houston, Justin Palmer, Reta Morill, and George Rosol.

If you’re an island author and would like to display your work, come sit down at the dock any time between 8:30 and 4:30, rain or shine. The Inn and The Cockeyed Gull will be selling appetizers, and rumor has it that Kevin Attra and Ronda Dale will perform in the afternoon. It you’re a reader, then don’t miss the opportunity to support local authors!

Hoffman's Guide to the World's Only Umbrella Cover Museu

The extraordinary Nancy 3. Hoffman has added “published author” to her notable list of achievements that already includes singer, accordionist, pianist, musical director, and Curator/Director of the world’s only Umbrella Cover Museum. Her performances with the Casco Bay Tummlers Klezmer Band and The Maine Squeeze accordion ensemble have demonstrated Nancy’s talents to audiences nationally and internationally, but founding the Umbrella Cover Museum, well, that put Nancy in a category all of her own, something you might expect from a woman who sports an integer for a middle name.

Nancy 3. playing her accordion

Now that Nancy has published Uncovered and Exposed: A Guide to the World’s Only Umbrella Cover Museum, you can discover the cultural landmark that Peaks Islanders pass daily on their way to the post office and grocery store – a quirky museum that National Public Radio, BBC Radio, The Weather Channel, and the New York Times have been talking about!

So get Uncovered and Exposed, hop on a Casco Bay Lines ferry, and visit the museum. Nancy might even serenade you with a song or two.

The journey of this book to publication intrigues reveals much about the author. When Cat and her husband, Dmitri, first moved to Peaks Island, they faced employment and financial challenges familiar to many of us these days.

Crossing Casco Bay aboard the "Island Romance"

Cat remembers: “I didn’t want charity, or something for nothing. I wanted to work, and support my family. I decided that in the world of new media and online literature, I could try to do what I do best: write a novel. I could offer up a book to the world, and try to feed us with it. I wanted it to be free, so that everyone could read it, not locked behind a password. But we needed money—so I posted to my blog and asked my readers to pay whatever they thought it was worth. Word spread fast, and help came. We were literally saved—because of a book, and a story, and a tribe of wonderful people who spread the word, and donated, and took care of my family in this New Depression everyone is getting to know.”

Those days are behind her now. Cat’s Fairyland tour reaches from California to the Pacific Northwest to New York. Our island has worked its magic upon her, though; she’s sure to return on the first ferry available, celebrating her newest book of her own making.

Of Deathless, Catherynne blogs “I think this is my best adult book to date, I really do. There is so much love in it, and so much hope… it is a retelling of Marya Morevna and Koschei the Deathless set during the Stalinist era and the siege of Leningrad. It is a return to fairy tales and the retellings of them. But it is also probably the funniest book I’ve ever written, (if you like dark humor)… I am proud of it. I am afraid of it. I hope I have done well by the story, by Leningrad, by Russia and Koschei and Baba Yaga and Marya and all of them. I hope I have done right by you.”

“Cat” and her husband, Dmitri, had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the setting of her book on their honeymoon – walking the streets where characters lived and exploring the history of the Siege.

Catherynne will be at our beloved Longfellow Books today Thursday, April 28th at 7:00 pm to read from her latest novel – a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death. It brings Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation. Catherynne will also be signing books! Don’t miss it.