Maine Street

We’ve heard “Main Street” bandied about by politicians this election season. It’s shorthand for small town U.S.A. My town has a Maine Street. No, that’s not a typo. Brunswick is in Maine.

A pillared bank graces the brick sidewalks. The wide street was designed for horse drawn carriages. There were once cobblestones and Elm trees. It’s still tree lined.

I began my first novel, Moose Crossing, with a scene on Maine Street. My second novel, S.A.D, is also set in Brunswick and on the islands of Harpswell. Grand City Variety captures the old time feel of my town. Our daily paper, The Times Record, reported that this retro five-and-ten will shut at the end of this year.

There are other small businesses that are still thriving. I’m pleased to say we have an independent bookstore, the Gulf of Maine. It's a good place to find books by local authors and lots of novels.

Need steel-toed boots and Carhartt work clothes? Try Pennell’s, established 1889. That bright orange clothing is all the rage this time of year. Maine Street fashion keeps you safe. November marks the start of deer hunting season.

Brunswick pulls out all stops for Halloween. School children paint the windows.

My daughter’s team didn’t win a prize for “Horrorscope,” but I award them a blog star for originality.

That’s an underwater Halloween in a crystal ball. Global warming is scary! They painted the Little Dog Café, a great place to settle into a comfy chair with a cup of coffee.

On Halloween Brunswick children gather at the village green and then march down Maine Street accompanied by the junior high school band.

When you cross the bridge to Topsham, the street apparently loses its sense of humor and becomes Main Street. Keep driving and town gives way to farms on Rural Rt. 201.

Stop at Rocky Ridge Orchard in Bowdoin to pick apples or to buy your pumpkin. My teenaged son chose the biggest pumpkin: 56 pounds! He carried and carved it himself. My daughter is a fan of the barn swing.

We got cider and Cote’s ice cream at the farm shop. Their cider press dates from 1935.

The flag in the opening photo hangs from the rafters. Rocky Ridge is stocked full of Americana, country antiques and the best baked goods.

We brought home a mixed dozen of pumpkin, cider and chocolate doughnuts and an apple pie that was still warm.

Another good place for “donuts” is Frosty’s back in Brunswick, but you’d better go quickly. Rumor has it that Frosty’s may also be going out of business after more than 3 decades. Like Grand City Variety, they may not be able to renew their five year lease on Maine Street.

I met fellow blogger Tina Ramsey from In the Garden for pumpkin donuts at Frosty’s. I realized I had a problem once I walked in the door. I was looking for a big yellow dog (Tina’s profile image) and had no idea what Tina looked like. Luckily Tina and her mother, Jean, (another regular commenter on my blog) recognized me immediately. Not too many folks in Maine have long, black, curly hair.

Photo of Tina and me by Tina's husband

Tina and I met through our blogs when I was living in England last year. Tina grew up in Brunswick and attended the same elementary school as my children did. Now she lives in Tennessee after retiring from the army and is doing a degree in horticulture paid for by Uncle Sam. She and her husband are veterans of the Iraq War.

Reading In The Garden’s chatty comments is just like stopping by a front porch in Maine. Tina posted last week about our meeting. I’m suffering from blog lag – too many good things going on in life to keep up. Tina gave me a marker stone for my home, a gift she hand-makes for the bloggers that she meets. Thanks, Tina!

I’ve also connected with Brunswick School Board district 7 candidate Michele Joyce. Her friend from the Peace Corps in Africa is Shauna of Thinks Monthly in California, another commenter on my blog. Michele’s claim was that good people will find each other. I’m happy that a good person like Michele is running for School Board in my town. Isn’t it amazing that two blogging connections could lead back to Maine Street?

While on the topic of Brunswick politics, I'm endorsing Nick Livesay for Town Council At-Large. Nick grew up in Brunswick, graduated from Bowdoin College and has returned to raise his family. His work experience as an environmental consultant will be especially helpful for land use planning after the Naval Air Station closure.

Can you believe that Election Day is less than a week away?

Art and Lunch on Bailey Island

Harpswell is a collection of islands and a long peninsula, dipping like long fingers into the Atlantic Ocean. I’ve heard it said that Maine has more miles of coastline than California. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sure feels right.

Bailey Island boasts of having “the world’s only cribstone bridge.” That’s most probably true as I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else. Slabs of granite, erected like Lincoln Logs, form an open lattice to the sea. You can see right through the bridge as the tide washes in and out. The larger opening is for lobster boats to drop their catch at Cook’s Lobster House. Beware of delays if you’re driving as the bridge is being repaired.

The Island Romance ferry from Portland brings tourists to Cook’s for lunch, but it approaches from the sea as do the many sailboats anchored in the harbor. Portland with 65,000 residents is the biggest city in Maine. Bailey Island has only 400 year round residents.

Usually we only go to Cook’s when people “from away” visit, but my kids felt like they’d been away long enough in England to merit lunch. We always start with the delicious fried calamari. The local mussels and steamers (clams) are delicious too. My son had the deep fried local shrimp in a bun and was upset to find it came with no greens (welcome to the USA.) My daughter orders non-seafood off the kids’ menu. If it’s lunch, I get a lobster roll and fresh coleslaw.

For dinner you’d have to get boiled lobsters. They do them well. My kids are huge fans of the mud pie parfait served in an old-fashioned ice cream sundae glass with a long spoon: coffee ice cream, fudge sauce, oreo crumbs with whipped cream and a cherry on top. The view out of the many windows is amazing.

I set a couple of scenes from my novel Moose Crossing on Bailey Island, including one at Cook’s. A central character in my novel S.A.D. is a lobsterman living on an island in Harpswell.

After lunch we headed to Cedar Beach, where the sea is thick with lobster buoys. It’s a small private beach with very limited on street parking. You have to walk 1/4 mile through buggy woods, meaning fewer crowds. Not a good beach to go at high tide as there would be little sand, but at low tide you can walk to a mini island and explore. My kids enjoy catching the many hermit crabs, wading through seaweed and climbing over the rocks. This is not a beach for the tender-footed.

I painted the watercolor on my bio page one fall at Cedar Beach, and the lobster boat harbor photo is on Bailey Island too. There are more Bailey Island paintings on my watercolor page. In the summer my wardrobe is a bathing suit and a smock. I swim first to cool down. I can paint the view while sort of keeping an eye on the kids.

It was take the kids to work day! Now that sounds ideal, but I’ve only just been able to manage it. My children are 11 and 14 and good swimmers. They are also good photographers. My son took the photo of me painting from behind, and my daughter took the front shot. My daughter wrote a story in her journal beside me while her brother dug a pit. They are usually good at not interrupting my concentration, but I prefer working on my own for longer hours.

Even at a remote location, I’ll run into people I know. It’s just as well that I was covered up for the sun as my doctor was there with her kids too. Remember how people used to compare tans? These days the competition is over the strongest sunscreen. I won with 45 zinc oxide over my doctor’s SPF 30 lotion. We tease each other because we are friends too. Lines blur in small towns.

Unfortunately, my first attempt at watercolor painting in a year also became a blur. I was rusty and without my favorite tools. Would you believe the only thing I lost in the move back from England were my paintbrushes? I have spares of my two favorites but will be buying more at Artist & Craftsman Supply in Portland today. I might also have to head back to Sapporo for a tuna sashimi lunch.

I’ve only painted 2 days because of all the rain, but at least on the second day I produced a good painting. We were lucky that day. Can you see the rain clouds passing out to sea?

In the afternoon the light improves, allowing me to intensify the colors and to find the shadows. The problem is that the tide changes too. Working on larger seascapes, I sometimes come back over several days to catch the tide and light. Bugs can be a distraction, as can people who stop to chat. I get in a meditative trance while working.

It’s never easy painting on location, but it does lend greater vitality than working from a photo. What I see with my eye is very different from what the camera lens captures. What I choose to paint versus photograph is quite different too. A photo is an instant. A painting is a vision unique to me. I often change the elements for the composition and let the wet pigment flow on its own. I love both media.

The biggest problem is I’m so absorbed in my work that I can’t engage the kids. It’s still more fun for them to go to the beach while I paint than to stay home while I write. I also need longer blocks of uninterrupted time to compose a novel, which I find while the kids are in school or at camp.

It’s nice having two careers that mesh well with the seasons and raising children. I work half days over the summer so that I can still focus on the kids. We all need some down time to enjoy the glorious Maine summer.

The blog keeps my writing free from rust. Also, in some ways, I am working on my next novel. The central character of my work in progress is a painter too. It will be interesting to combine my two passions of writing and art in one book. As much as I love painting, I’m counting the weeks until I can get back to novel writing. The summer is going by so fast.

Welcome to Maine

My eyes watered up as the plane flew over the ocean, dotted with islands. Inland was rich pine green with distant mountains. Lightening snaked down under grey clouds. Of course we’d brought the rain back with us, but everyone is grateful due to near drought conditions. It’s too ironic.

As we approached the runway, our plane angled away and circled. There was a moose on the runway! What a homecoming for the author of Moose Crossing. Was it an omen? Or just the storm?

As soon as we got in the car, the rain lashed down with a force I’ve never seen outside of Maine. The road became a river. Lightening flashed. Thunder cracked. Henry was just getting used to driving on the American side of the road.

We decided to ride out the storm in Portland at our favorite Japanese restaurant. Sapporo has the freshest sushi at a great value. Tuna is caught right off the coast. On a cold day, we often order the nabeyaki udon, a chicken-vegetable-noodle soup. Even my Japanese sister-in-law was impressed last time she visited.

Storms in Maine tend to be violent but short lasting. They blow out to sea, clearing the heat and humidity. A typical summer day is in the upper 70’s with cooler nights. It felt refreshing after the 90 plus muggy heat of NYC.

Back on the highway our happy smiles were short lived. Our tire blew out on a nail! Luckily the spare was okay as we haven’t gotten cell phones yet. Vacation traffic was zooming by. Off the shoulder was a swamp and islands. The air smelled fresh in the light rain.

We pulled off the highway and wound back home slowly on Rt. 1. Hay was rolled on the golden fields. Cattle and sheep were grazing. It was farm country, but still so different from the hedged green English fields.


Excited cries came from the kids as we drove into town. On our garage door was a damp welcome home sign from my friend Charlotte Agell. It’s a bit of a joke. Charlotte’s first young adult novel was called Welcome Home or Someplace Like It. It’s a fabulous story about a family returning home to coastal Maine. How appropriate.

It felt so odd walking back into our old life as if we had never left. My children didn’t dwell on it and ran off through the woods to visit their buddies. No need to call first. My daughter came home in war paint with a big grin. My son’s friend had walked back with him to see our dog. We’re friends with their parents too.

Our hometown is friendly. People have been stopping by to say hi. We’ve run into others on dog walks, at the farmers’ market or shopping in town. You have to factor an extra 10 minutes into going anywhere for time to chat.

On Sunday we went to Popham Beach with friends who could well understand our dazed confusion at being back home. The Bradley-Webbs had moved to Paris but had kept their home in Maine as a summer house, much to our delight. They had visited us in England, and we had stayed with them twice in France. Our 11-year-old daughters picked up as if no time had passed, giggling away.

Elizabeth and I went for a long walk on the 3 mile beach and passed other friends. In one direction Popham is a nature reserve and on the other end summer houses overlook small islands.

Not exactly beach weather, but isn’t Popham gorgeous in the mist? That’s Seguin lighthouse in the photo below and in my new header image. It's funny: doesn't the photo look more like a watercolor than my painting does? You can see why I chose that medium.

Once I’ve unpacked, I will be painting again this summer. I write novels during the rest of the year. My two vocations work well with the climate. I’ve missed the change of seasons while living in England, the land of eternal spring. There is nothing nicer than a Maine summer, especially when the rain stops!

I’m taking time to relax in the midst of unpacking. The kids’ first request was to go to Cote’s for the best homemade ice cream in Maine. It’s served from an unassuming shack on Brunswick’s Maine Street (love that pun!) Usually the line is long. The rumbles of thunder must have scared off the less intrepid. The ice cream was even better than we remembered, and we beat the rain home.

We need sweet treats, as there are still boxes and suitcases to unpack from England. To make room for our tenants, we stored even more boxes in my daughter’s room. They were shoulder high, now knee high. Despite all the upheaval, or maybe because of it, we are all sleeping so well in our own beds.

It’s a delight to be back in our house where the furniture is comfortable with good reading lights, and there is room to stretch out. I stop and admire every painting as if seeing it for the first time. Our house at under 3,000 square feet isn’t large by American standards, but it’s more than twice the size of what we had in England. We have a mini forest for a backyard.

The lilies are cheerful even if the weeds are not. I’ve pruned the burning bushes back into trees already. I’ve fixed the refrigerator, a stuck drawer and plugged shower heads. The clothes are unpacked but not my office. I’m trying to reorganize as I unpack, to regain the sparse order we had in England with so much less clutter.

That sabbatical seems to have given me peace with my life. I’m so much more appreciative of our home after missing it. There’s a true sense of belonging one gets in a small town although sometimes the perspective can be too narrow. The time spent abroad has widened my vision and stimulated my imagination.

I’m eager to get back to work and to see what happens. I can’t wait to try out my new SLR camera. First I need to settle in and catch up with friends. I didn't realize how happy I was to be home until I took a break from unpacking to have a pint and crisps (Uh, I mean a beer and potato chips) with Henry on our deck. The sun was setting in a cool blue sky casting gold on the tall pines. Can you see why I love it here?

What is Women's Fiction?

As the daffodils and fruit trees are in full bloom, I realize our year in England is going faster than expected. It really takes six months to get settled in a new location, especially abroad. Last time we relocated to England for only half a year, and it felt like we left prematurely after too much work settling in and not enough payback. We were thrilled to get an opportunity to return for my husband’s sabbatical from Bowdoin College. Henry’s English; I’m American, and our children are dual citizens. We are both writers.

In Oxford Henry and I are gathering material and writing books. His book is on the politics of public television in the US, UK and Japan. My books are women’s fiction and set in the USA and England. The time here is for research. Free from the many distractions at home, we can focus on our writing. It has been very productive and fun time too.

My books might appeal to readers of all ages and genders, but marketing categories exist in publishing. Women writing for mostly female audiences about relationships and contemporary issues are pigeon-holed as “women’s fiction,” not to be confused with romance novels or its younger, urban sister chick lit. The central plot in romance is always love between a man and a woman, usually with a happy ending.

In women's fiction, key relationships include friends and family as well as lovers. Career is important too. Chick lit, a sub-category of women's fiction, tends to be set in London or NYC and features single women in their 20's and 30's with close friends looking for love, shopping and job satisfaction. Women's fiction can span all ages in various settings and may tackle substantive issues. The protagonist is a strong woman making realistic trade-offs in the modern world. Most of the editors and agents are female too. Is the term women’s fiction offensive, such as “lady doctor,” or does it celebrate the female voice?

In my so called genre of women’s fiction, I’ve enjoyed reading Michelle Wildgen’s You’re Not You. It’s a story about a young woman caring for a charming middle aged woman in a wheelchair. It explores attitudes towards the disabled including sexuality. Nothing is taboo, and the honest perspective is refreshing. Wildgen writes incredibly well even if the opening is a bit off-putting. Keep going; it’s well worth it. You’re Not You is a literary gem.

I’m juggling writing 3 women’s fiction novels: MOOSE CROSSING is looking for a publisher, S.A.D. is in revision and NOT CRICKET (A MATCH FOR EVE) is gathering material. Having more than one project going on at a time means I don’t get stuck with down time. While editors and my agent are reading manuscripts, I can work on the next project. Despite recent growth in women's fiction, there are no sure bets in publishing except for Jodi Picoult. Serious writers know to keep writing. The process is hurry up and wait: writing, revising and then waiting for feedback.

Writing takes a certain personality. You have to be creative, but it’s just as important to be self-motivated, disciplined, comfortable working alone and able to set and meet personal deadlines or you’ll never finish. Given how hard it is to break into publishing, a writer has to be good at taking criticism and rejection and be willing to learn from it.

A novelist also needs to get out there and live life to have experiences worth sharing. Friendships with other writers help break the solitude, ease the stress and celebrate the benchmarks like completing a manuscript and finding an agent. You have to find your colleagues.

I’ve joined an informal writing group organized by the women’s fiction author Miranda Glover. That’s been a big plus as I’ve missed my writer friends back in Maine: Charlotte Agell, Maria Padian and Cynthia Lord. Just as I’ve learned about American publishing from those seasoned authors, I've gained insights into the world of English publishing from my new writing group. It’s a smaller market than in the USA and less dependent on agents although they still play an important role.

I’m also learning about contemporary English fiction by reading. David Mitchell showcases his breadth in the dizzying Cloud Atlas. Every well crafted story is interlocking. The collection spans the full gamut of genre writing from historical fiction, to suspense thriller, to science fiction. It's almost a parody of shifting voice and form including: a journal, letters, a manuscript, a screenplay, a deposition and an almost unintelligible myth. Cloud Atlas was short listed for the Booker Prize. It should have won.

My husband, our teenaged son and I loved Mitchell's Black Swan Green which is literary fiction/young adult crossover, but he is hard to categorize. It seems like few have heard of Mitchell in England even though his work is so English and current. His novels got more of a buzz in the USA. The protagonists of 2 of his Cloud Atlas stories are strong women, but his work would never be labeled women’s fiction. How come when a man writes a novel, it's just called fiction?

Primroses in January from the land of eternal spring.

Here’s a male author/blogger’s perspective on gender issues in publishing: C.W. Gortner’s "Gender wars in books?"

On Politics: I’ve been following the neck-and-neck American primaries with fascination and the electoral problems in Kenya with concern. Here’s a provocative NYT op-ed that linked the two:
“Tribalism Here, and There”

Unusual Holiday Lights

The Christmas lights around Oxford seem quite understated after the USA. Back home in Brunswick, Maine people go wild. I’ve seen a dry-docked boat towing a skiing snowman and Santa with all the reindeers on the roof. First prize for original Christmas lights in Maine this year goes to Melissa Walters and Bob Black. Check out their house lights above. That’s the date when the next American president will be sworn into office.

Given that there is no separation between church and state in England, I was not expecting much for Hanukkah. The stores were filled with only Christmas decorations and busy shoppers. Trees were adorned with lights and tasteful white stars hung above the high streets.

Sunday night we had just come from a lovely candle-lit carol service at Magdalen College Chapel when my daughter cried out, “Look a giant outdoor menorah!”

“Where?”

“Right there next to the Christmas Tree.”

At first I thought it had to be Advent candles, but sure enough it was a menorah on Broad Street. The biggest one I’ve ever seen. Add the gothic architecture and it was surreal. My daughter came back the next night to see how it was lit. At 5:00 pm a cherry picker truck hoisted up a rabbi to light the gas lamps. Brilliant!

Hanukkah is usually an understated affair, celebrated in the home by lighting candles for eight nights. Yesterday was the last night. It’s not the most important Jewish holiday but has risen in importance to balance the commercial appeal of Christmas for children.

Growing up in NYC with a Jewish father and an Episcopalian mother, my family celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah as well as Easter, Passover, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I thought I was pretty lucky and have done the same for my family. Only my children, unlike me, went to Hebrew School for several years. It’s a relief when Hanukkah and Christmas don’t overlap. It makes the balancing act a little easier.

MOOSE CROSSING is about a mixed religion family that moves from NYC to Maine after 9/11. There’s even a scene with a moose menorah. First novels are often very personal. Common advice is to write about what you know. The characters and the plot are fictional, but I do like to draw from experience for setting and subject. S.A.D. also looks at multiple religions. Neither book is particularly religious, but belief and identity are important themes.

Right now I’m busy turning around S.A.D. for my next reader, Kim Slote, who will be reading over her holiday vacation. That’s a good friend! Kim does advocacy for Planned Parenthood in Florida as well as selling natural cosmetics. She’s a mother of two children and coincidentally from a mixed religion family too. I like to test my work on typical readers as well as get feedback from those in my profession.

As I work on plot, I highlight each plot string in a different color. That shows me how the sub plots are proportioned throughout the narrative and in relation to one another. Unweaving the plot helps me address specific criticisms and focus on inconsistencies, redundancies and verbosity. Each plot string needs to be able to stand alone and to weave seamlessly into the whole. It’s rewarding when it all comes together in the end. Still plenty of work to do!

I'm dreaming of a green Christmas....

Moose Crossing

An e-mail from someone in Windham, Maine:

I have never seen a newborn moose. This one was not even a half a mile from our house. The mother picked a small quiet neighborhood and had her baby in the front yard at 5:30 am. We were out bike riding when we came upon the pair. The lady across the street from this house told us she saw it being born. We saw them at 5:30 pm. So the little one was 12 hours old. What an awesome place we live in to see such a site!






Note: If you know who took these moose photos, comment below so I can credit the photographer.

Recommended Books:

The Septembers of Shiraz by Dalia Sofer
Beautifully written story about a wealthy Jewish family after the Iranian Revolution. On page one the father is arrested and disappears. This new release is a remarkable debut novel, reminiscent of Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner.

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
A lighter summer read. Run away and join the circus. A portrait of Depression era America with an odd but endearing cast of characters. Rosie, the elephant, steals the show. The narrator was a circus vet now trapped in a nursing home and his aging body. As fast, busy and entertaining as the big top.