Join us for year 8!

Books in Boothbay will return on Saturday, July 14 for year number 8! Mark your calendars! See you then!

One week to go, award-nominees and warm-up events

It's only seven more days until the best book fair in all of Maine returns to Boothbay Harbor!

This year's Books in Boothbay features six authors have have been nominated for Maine Literary awards for 2011 (books published in 2010): Elisabeth Tova Bailey, Paul Doiron, Sandra Dutton, Lily King, Cynthia Lord and Susan Shetterly.

Also, one of our authors, Melissa Coleman, will be reading from her latest book, This Life in Your Hands, at Skidompha Library in Damariscotta on July 8th at 5pm.

Paul Doiron

Paul Doiron is an award-winning journalist and the author of THE POACHER'S SON which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, Barry, Thriller, Macavity, and Strand Critics Awards for "Best First Novel." His second book in the Mike Bowditch series, TRESPASSER has been called a "masterpiece of
high-octane narrative" by "Booklist." He is the editor in chief of "Down East: The Magazine of Maine," Down East Books, and DownEast.com. A native of Maine, he attended Yale University, where he graduated with a degree in English, and he holds an MFA in creative writing from Emerson College. Paul is a Registered Maine Guide and lives on a trout stream in coastal Maine with his wife, Kristen Lindquist.

All Books in Boothbay Authors for 2011

We're just days away from this year's Books in Boothbay festival. Here is the fully list of our attending authors and artists. Browse our blog for their bios and other information, and we'll see you soon!

Elisabeth Tova Bailey
Liza Bakewell
Crash Barry
Cheryl Blaydon
Bill Bunting
Tim Caverly
Holly Chamberlin
Richard Shain Cohen
Melissa Coleman
Susan Conley
Ron Currie, Jr.
Katharine Davis
Paul Doiron
Sandra Dutton
Cathryn Falwell
Ardeana Hamlin
Karel Hayes
Hannah Holmes
Shonna Milliken Humphrey
Lily King
Carole Lambert
Cynthia Lord
John McDonald
Tammy L. R.Meserve
Dana Moos
Lillian Nayder
James L.Nelson
Jim Nichols
Maria Padian
Alice Parsons
Van Reid
Michael S.Sanders
Caitlin Shetterly
Susan Hand Shetterly
Jennifer Smith-Mayo & Matthew P. Mayo
Julia Spencer-Fleming
Randy Spencer
Harrison Thorp
Chris Van Dusen
Lea Wait
Jim Witherell

Carole Lambert

Award-winning author Carole Lambert spent 11 years abroad as an editor at the International Herald Tribune, and journalism professor at the American University in Paris and l’École Supérieur de Commerce. She has written three books on sea glass, and continues to write for numerous magazines and newspapers. She has searched for sea glass around the world and now lives in coastal Maine, which offers prime hunting grounds. She found her first piece of sea glass when she was 5.

Dana Moos

In addition to her background in design and photography, Dana Moos has immersed herself in the world of innkeeping, as a B&B owner, manager and chef, as well as real estate and marketing specialist to the hospitality industry. Her unique combination of talents has been the subject of several articles and she has been invited to judge culinary competitions in her home state of Maine. Currently chef and manager of the prestigious Pomegranate Inn in Portland, Dana brings a fresh flair to the first, and many say most important, meal of the day. The Art of Breakfast is her first book, which she both wrote and photographed. Dana is now the General Manager at the Pomegranate Inn where she cooks breakfast for her guests from the cookbook.

Jennifer Smith-Mayo and Matthew P. Mayo

Photographer Jennifer Smith-Mayo, and her husband, writer Matthew P. Mayo, are co-authors of the recently released book Maine Icons: 50 Classic Symbols of the Pine Tree State, published by Globe Pequot Press, May 2011. Maine Icons is a handsome visual tour of Maine that profiles the likely suspects—lobster, blueberries, lighthouses, whoopie pies—plus a whole lot of surprises, too (Raye’s Mustard, Renys, Fog, and so many more!).

Jennifer specializes in photography of fine dining, rural living, and farming in the US, England, Ireland, Italy, and Scotland. Her photographs have appeared in Down East, National Geographic, The New York Times, and others. Her work has been selected for a variety of juried exhibitions and her solo shows include Learning to Grow: In the Garden with Troy Howard Middle School, Belfast, Maine; Futzing with Focus: Images in Motion; and Kelmscott (Rare Breeds) Farm: Through the Seasons. Jennifer is also an instructor and teaches digital imaging and digital photography workshops for the University of Maine and Senior College at the Hutchinson Center.

Matthew is the author of a number of novels and non-fiction books, including Bootleggers, Lobstermen & Lumberjacks; Cowboys, Mountain Men & Grizzly Bears; and the forthcoming Sourdoughs, Claim Jumpers & Dry Gulchers. His novels include the Westerns Winters’ War; Wrong Town; and Hot Lead, Cold Heart, and he contributes to several series of popular adventure novels. His award-winning short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Needle: A Magazine of Noir; DAW Books’ Steampunk’d and Timeshares; How the West Was Weird, Vol. II; Mondo Sasquatch; and A Fistful of Legends. Matthew also edits anthologies and contributes to several magazines as writer and editor.

Jennifer and Matthew and their dear dog Nessie live in Northport in the midcoast region of Maine. They frequently travel west to Montana, and east to England and Ireland. Visit Jennifer at: www.jennifersmithmayo.com; and Matthew at: www.matthewmayo.com.

Ardeana Hamlin

Ardeana Hamlin of Hampden, Maine, is the author of two previous novels, "Pink Chimneys" and "A Dream of Paris." Her latest book, "Abbott's Reach" is a sequel to "Pink Chimneys." She is a newspaper journalist and writes the weekly By Hand column about fiber arts.

Chris Van Dusen

Chris Van Dusen writes: “I was born in Portland, Maine, on St. Patrick’s Day, 1960. As a child, my brothers and I would spend hours drawing pictures. We didn’t have video games or computers to entertain us, so we drew instead. One of my brothers would sketch intricate war scenes. Another would draw animals so realistic you’d swear they were breathing. My specialty was aliens, robots, and monsters.

“Dr. Seuss and Robert McCloskey were my heroes. I loved the rhythm of Dr. Seuss’ words and I was fascinated by the meticulous detail of Robert McCloskey’s illustrations. I had no idea back then that I’d end up writing and illustrating children’s books when I grew up.

“After high school, I studied fine art at The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth and graduated with a BFA in 1982. It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to do. First I was a waiter, and then I was offered a part-time job at a magazine for teenagers. Eventually I started drawing cartoons and illustrations for the magazine and my career as an illustrator was born.

“For more than ten years I worked as a freelance illustrator specializing in art for kids. I was doing mostly editorial work and my illustrations appeared in magazines like Nickelodeon, Family Fun, and Disney Adventures. One day I started thinking about drawing a picture of a boat stuck high up in a tree. I thought that would be a really funny and intriguing illustration. At the same time, a refrain kept running through my head—“Mr. Magee and his little dog, Dee / Hopped in the car and drove down to the sea.” The combination of these two things eventually became my first book, Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee (Chronicle), which was published in 2000. Since then I’ve written and illustrated A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee (Chronicle) (2003), If I Built a Car (Puffin) (2005) and I’ve had a ball illustrating Kate DiCamillo’s Mercy Watson series (Candlewick).

“My contribution to Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out is the illustration of Teddy Roosevelt, who was one of my favorite presidents. I knew he was a great environmentalist, but I was surprised to learn that he and his children kept so many pets in the White House. I could just imagine that TR would have found it quite amusing to be surrounded by so many animals, so that’s what I started sketching.

 “I relied on old photographs for reference. I had photos of the president laughing, photos of his children, and even photos of their pets. Since I’ve never been inside the White House, I had photos of that, too. I had to make the staircase wider than it actually is to accommodate five children and twenty-two animals! In the end, I hope my painting captures the playful energy of Teddy Roosevelt’s White House.”

Lily King

Lily King’s first novel, The Pleasing Hour (1999), won the Barnes and Noble Discover Award and a Whiting Award, and was a New York Times Notable Book and an alternate for the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her second, The English Teacher (2005), was a Publishers Weekly Top Ten Book of the Year, a Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year, and the winner of the Maine Fiction Award.

Father of the Rain, her third novel, was published last summer and won the New England Book Award for fiction.  It was also a New York Times Editor's Choice, and a Publishers Weekly and Washington Post Best Book of the Year.

Tammy LR Meserve

Edgecomb resident Tammy LR Meserve says she knew she wanted to become a writer from a very early age. Born and raised in Damariscotta, Maine that dream followed her from the age of seven right on into adulthood.

"I have always been passionate about words,” said Meserve.  “As a young child, I remember telling my dad that I wanted to become a writer when I grew up. He encouraged me to follow my dreams. He was my biggest fan. When I was about nine years old, my father introduced me to local award winning author, Mary C. Jane of Newcastle. Mrs. Jane wrote children’s mysteries and became a wonderful friend and mentor.”

As an adolescent, Meserve began submitting poetry and feature articles to local newspapers and church newsletters and enjoyed seeing her words in print. The list of publications to highlight her work soon included several national magazines.

The publishing experiences during her youth led her to begin writing regularly. Since 1988 and the birth of her son Tyler, she has written for various publications, statewide and nationally and has won varied awards for Journalism.

Meserve began working on her first children‘s book, “There’s a Moose Loose in the Hoose!” in 2007. Since its publication in 2009, she has written a second book and is currently at work on her third.

Richard Shain Cohen

Richard Shain Cohen of Cape Elizabeth, Maine, is originally from Boston. He retired from the University of Maine at Presque Isle after serving as Vice President of Academic Affairs and Professor of English. He holds B.S., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees.

He served as editor of the journal Husson Review and was principal participant in a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for “Images of Aroostook” that was exhibited throughout the State of Maine.

His latest book is Healing After Dark: The moving story of the beginnings of compassionate medicine in America; the memoir of a Medical Pioneer, Morris A. Cohen, M.D. and his Boston Evening Clinic, the first "after-dark" healing center in the nation. With recollections, introduction, epilogue, index by his son, Richard Shain Cohen, and edited by Richard Shain Cohen. Additional editing by Helen Compton.

His own publications, in addition to this book include: The Forgotten Longfellow: Man in the Shadows (2010), Only God Can Make a Tree, poetry from himself and his brother, Alfred Robert Cohen; and the novels Monday: End of the Week, Be Still, My Soul, and Petal on a Black Bough. He also wrote chapters for Aroostook: Land of Promise, academic reviews, other articles, and – with the help of a Shell Grant – a monograph on Samuel Richardson that can be found in major library holdings.

Aside from the present book, in progress is a fourth novel.

Cheryl Blaydon

Maine artist Cheryl Blaydon, best known for her seascapes in oil, has added a new dimension to her work with the creation of her first book, The Memory Keepers. This fictional memoir describes growing up in a household of loving Italian women who create a tapestry of their lives that is both humorous and poignant when all is revealed.

Interspersed throughout the book are images of the paintings created from Cheryl’s travels to Italy to honor her heritage. Published by North Country Press, the book is expected out at the end of May. To learn more, visit her at www.mainelyseascapes.com.

Karel Hayes

Award-winning children’s book author and illustrator, Karel Hayes, has a way without words. Her drawings and paintings have appeared in national exhibitions and a wide variety of magazines. She has illustrated numerous books, including Time for the Fair, and Who’s Been Here? A Tale in Tracks, and has both written and illustrated The Amazing Journey of Lucky the Lobster Buoy, The Winter Visitors, Snowflake Comes to Stay and The Summer Visitors. A master of watercolor, she also teaches painting workshops, and is a charter member of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC.

Karel, her husband, and Snowy, their Bichon Frisé, live in Center Harbor, New Hampshire.

Cathryn Falwell

Maine children’s book illustrator and author Cathryn Falwell was born in Kansas City, Kansas and grew up in the Midwest --Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota--before moving to Connecticut as a teenager. She received her BFA in Art from the University of Connecticut in 1975. After college, Ms. Falwell lived in New Hampshire for several years where she worked as a teacher and a graphic designer. Returning to Connecticut, she worked as an art director and designer for an award-winning graphic design firm. Five years later, she opened her own design business, specializing in institutional and corporate print design.

Ms. Falwell married Peter Mirkin in 1979. After their two sons were born, she decided to pursue the children’s book field--something she had wanted to do since the second grade. Her first picture book, Where’s Nicky? was published in 1991.

Ms Falwell and her husband live in Gorham, Maine. Their two children, now adults, live happy and creative lives.  In addition to writing and illustrating picture books, Ms. Falwell volunteers with community and social action groups, is an active member of a Unitarian church, and enjoys music, traveling, gardening, reading and hiking. Her studio overlooks Frog Song Pond, which has inspired several of her books. She visits schools and libraries to present interactive programs for children that celebrate books, creativity and imagination.

Harrison Thorp

Harrison Thorp is an award-winning reporter and editor who spent 20 years working at newspapers throughout Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Before becoming a career journalist, he spent time teaching high school English and working for Amtrak. While growing up in Massachusetts, his family spent summers on Southport. He currently lives in Lebanon.

Elisabeth Tova Bailey

Elisabeth Tova Bailey's natural history/memoir, The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating, has received a National Outdoor Book Award in Natural History Literature and a John Burroughs Medal Award for Distinguished Natural History. The story of Elisabeth's year-long observations of a wild Maine woodland snail is finding a universal audience regardless of age, gender, or walk of life. But the book holds a particular interest for readers who love natural history and because the backdrop to the story is chronic illness, it is also finding a special home in the hearts of patients and medical professionals. Elisabeth lives in Maine.

Jim Nichols

Jim Nichols is a Maine native who lives in Warren with his wife, Anne. His work has been published in numerous venues, including Esquire, Portland Monthly, Zoetrope ASE, Narrative and Night Train. He is a past winner of the Willamette Fiction Award, and was awarded an Independent Artists Fellowship by the Maine Arts Commission. His collection Slow Monkeys and Other Stories was published by Carnegie Mellon Press in 2003, and his novel Hull Creek is just out from Down East Books.

Crash Barry

For more than a decade, Crash Barry worked as a print and radio reporter in Portland, Maine, specializing in his own style of undercover journalism. A recipient of a NEA and Maine Arts Commission Fiction Fellowship, he wrote the critically acclaimed Sex, Drugs and Blueberries, published in 2010.

Crash's latest book, Tough Island, will be released in June 2011. Illustrated by Patrick Corrigan, Tough Island retells the events of the two years Crash spent as a sternman on Matinicus, Maine's most remote island. Hes currently writing a non-fiction account of the first season of a secret, but legal medical marijuana farm in the hills of Maine.

Lillian Nayder

Lillian Nayder is Professor and Chair of English at Bates College and President of the Dickens Society.  She has published critical studies of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins and is writing a novel about Dickens’s two sisters, Fanny and Letitia, and his blind sister-in-law Harriet.  Her biography of Catherine Dickens, The Other Dickens: A Life of Catherine Hogarth, is her first venture into life writing.  She lives with her family in New Gloucester, Maine.

Holly Chamberlin

Holly Chamberlin lives in Portland, Maine, with her husband Stephen, an architect and photographer, and their fabulous cats Cyrus and Betty. When not writing, Holly enjoys reading, hosting friends and family at their restored Victorian home, going out to hear friends play jazz and blues, working on scrapbooks, and making beaded jewelry.

Liza Bakewell

Liza Bakewell is an anthropologist, a faculty member at Brown University and the author of MADRE: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun.

While Liza was an anthropology PhD student, her research took her to Mexico, where she became intrigued by the numerous Mexican expressions that use the word “madre” (mother in Spanish). Her book, part memoir, part anthropological investigation into the culture and language of Mexico, was funded in part by the Fulbright Fellowship that she received in 2008.
 
Liza graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a B.A. in performing arts and anthropology and earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Brown University. She has been on the faculty at Brown since 1992, first as teaching faculty, and now as research faculty. She also directs The Mesolore Project (www.mesolore.net), a research and educational software project on Mesoamerican writing systems, manuscripts, and history, from both the pre- and post-Cortés periods. In addition, she has taught courses at Bowdoin College and Colgate University

Liza has lived in Connecticut, Ohio, Colorado, California, Mexico, and Rhode Island. For the past ten years she has lived on the coast of Maine with her twin daughters.

James L. Nelson

Jim Nelson was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine. He graduated from UCLA with a degree in motion picture/television production but, finding that despite the California sun, it was a damp, drizzly November in his soul, Jim took the cure Melville recommended and decided to sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. For six years he worked on board traditional sailing ships before realizing it would be easier to write about sailing rather than actually doing it.

Jim is the author of sixteen works of maritime fiction and history. His novel Glory in the Name was the winner or the American Library Association/William Young Boyd Award for Best Military Fiction and his nonfiction George Washington's Secret Navy won the Naval Order’s Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval History. He has appeared on the Discovery Channel, History Channel and BookTV. He currently lives in Harpswell with his former shipmate, now wife Lisa and their four children.

Author Announcement: Sarah Braunstein

Sarah Braunstein is the author of The Sweet Relief of Missing Children (W.W. Norton & Co., Feb. 2011). She was recently named one the “5 Under 35” fiction writers by the National Book Foundation, and was a 2007 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award. She teaches at Harvard University Extension School and the Stanford Online Writer’s Studio. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and an MSW from Smith College School for Social Work. She lives in Portland, Maine.

Author Announcement: Maria Padian

Maria Padian is a freelance writer, essayist, and author of young adult novels.  Her debut novel, Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress, was selected as an ALA-YALSA Best Book for Young Adults in 2009 and also received a Maine Literary Award and a Maine Lupine Honor Award.  Her second novel, Jersey Tomatoes Are the Best, was published by Knopf Books for Young Readers in March, 2011.

A graduate of Middlebury College and the University of Virginia, Maria has also attended Oxford University and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.  Born in New York but raised in New Jersey, she currently lives in Maine with her family and their Australian shepherd.  To learn more about her, visit www.mariapadian.com

Author Announcement: Caitlin Shetterly

Caitlin Shetterly is a freelance writer, frequent contributor to National Public Radio, actor and the Founder and Artistic Director of the Winter Harbor Theatre Company

Her memoir, MADE FOR YOU AND ME: GOING WEST, GOING BROKE, FINDING HOME, was released in March.

Author Announcement: Lea Wait

Maine author, historian and antique print dealer Lea Wait writes historical novels for ages 7-14, and the Agatha-finalist Shadows Antique Print Mystery series for adults featuring protagonist Maggie Summer

Author Announcement: Shonna Milliken Humphrey

Shonna Milliken Humphrey is the former director of the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance.  Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times and Salon.com.  Show Me Good Land is her first novel.

Author Announcement: Cynthia Lord

Cynthia Lord is a former elementary and middle school teacher whose debut novel, Rules, won a Newbery Honor Award and a Schneider Family Book Award. In addition, students in six states awarded Rules their state’s student-choice award: Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Vermont.

Cynthia’s first picture book, Hot Rod Hamster, with illustrations by Derek Anderson, was published in February 2010.

A new middle-grade novel, Touch Blue, was published in the summer of 2010. Touch Blue offers a warm-hearted, humorous and thoughtful look at what it means to belong – and how lucky we feel when we do.

Author Announcement: Sandra Dutton

Sandra Dutton's books have been named to "Pick of the Lists" by American Bookseller, and featured in Publishers Weekly.

She has taught both art and writing at the elementary, high school, and university levels, and has a Ph.D. in Rhetoric & Composition. Her musical "Just a Matter of Time" was produced as an Equity Showcase at the Sage Theatre, Times Square, New York City.

Her reviews have appeared in the New York Times Book Review.

Author Announcement: Katharine Davis

Katharine Davis began writing fiction in 1999.  Capturing Paris (St. Martin’s Press, 2006) was her first novel.  Recommended in Real Simple Spring Travel 2007, the novel was also included in the New York Times suggestions for fiction set in Paris.  Her second novel, East Hope, published by New American Library in 2009, won the Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance 2010 Award for Fiction. 

A Slender Thread, her third novel, was published by New American Library in August, 2010.  She can be reached at www.katharinedavis.com

Author Announcement: Susan Conley

Susan Conley, author of The Foremost Good Fortune, lived in Beijing for more than two years, returning to Portland, Maine with her husband and two sons in December 2009. She is co-founder and executive director of the Telling Room, a writers’ workshop and literary hub for the region. She was an associate editor at Ploughshares and has led creative writing seminars at Emerson College in Boston. Her work has been published in The New York Times Magazine as well as The Paris Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and other literary magazines. She is currently working on a novel and settling back into life in the States.

2011 date announced!

The Seventh Annual Books in Boothbay, Maine’s Summer book fair, will be held on Saturday, July 9th 2011 in the historic 1844 Boothbay Town Hall at the Boothbay Railway Village from 12:30 pm until 3:30 pm.

Stay tuned for exciting author announcements!