Book friends unite
It’s no secret that most children’s books are about relationships. Author Lyn Smith and I traveled recently to visit fellow book creator, Jo Miles Schuman. Lyn and Jo met via Maine Authors Publishing and I’m always down to meet fellow book makers. We found her homestead along a winding road with acres and acres of rolling woods and wetlands beyond. We ducked beneath swooping swallows nesting in the dark rafters of her barn and into a sunny studio where Jo served a scrumptious rhubarb pie and carrot cake. Double dessert, yes please. Her studio is filled with collections...
Read MoreBook Friends
Way back in 2009, I visited the Friends School of Portland to read my first children’s book, Seven Days of Daisy. Friends do make the world go ’round. Fast forward to a recent sunny Tuesday, when I headed off island to visit their Stories by the Forest program. When I arrived at the Peaks Island dock, it was oddly quiet. Where is everybody? Well, yours truly had missed the boat! The summer schedule change got me! So, I promptly called the trusty water taxi. Here she comes, zipping across a placid Casco Bay. I made it to Cumberland Foreside in a timely manner and set up my table...
Read MoreLe Retour
Since illustrating the cover of Nicole d’Entremont’s A Generation of Leaves, I’ve witnessed her continued discovery of the depths of that story. After taking a play writing class at Maine College of Art’s Continuing Studies Program, she began developing dialogue for her novel’s characters that would become Le Retour. Her play will be on stage next week at Salle Pere Maurice in Tusket, Nova Scotia, presented by Theatre Generations. Show times are July 7 and July 14 at 7:30, tickets are $12 at the door. For more information, call (902) 740-4094. Nicole will be in...
Read MoreIreland adventures: Cork to Dublin
We headed to Cork on June 2, driving back up the Dingle peninsula about 40 miles to Tralee. While at the Dingle Library, I’d read an essay about the Two Paps, a pair of mountains which, upon seeing them, the writer felt nourished by. I kept looking for them as the landscape, quilted in greens, rolled by. Every so often we’d ride through a town, where the ancient hugs the modern. We took an hour’s detour down to Kenmare, so I could pick up a cashmere sweater for Grace, the only person to request I bring something very specific back. It was the quickest of stops; Marty...
Read MoreAdventures in Ireland
Ever since a brief visit to Ireland in 1980, I have yearned to go back. Somehow, the years piled up until recently, when Marty, Daisy and I enjoyed two weeks of travels there. On May 22, we flew to Shannon Airport, during which the dusk to dawn was sped up, like a time lapse into the next day. We landed at 6 AM, sleepless, and rented a diesel powered Renault in which Marty bravely took the wheel to find our first lodging. The Carrygerry House is a mere 15 minute drive from the airport but felt far away in another time, situated above rolling fields. The inn’s pastoral views relaxed us...
Read MoreDisgraced
When I read the script last year for Ayad Akhtar’s Disgraced, it leapt off the page. This play is his first, and he’s the first Muslim playwright to win a Pulitzer. The story begins in Amir and Emily’s posh apartment on the Upper West Side in NYC, where issues of identity, race, religion, and culture clash in unforgettable drama. The play begins with Emily sketching Amir, inspired by Velazquez’s Portrait of Juan de Peraja. It played into my first sketch for the poster. Amir has renounced the religion of his birth, Islam, and diligently climbed the ladder at a law...
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