Maine Essays Set

Salt and Roses

Salt and Roses is a charming collection of essays for those who appreciate simple pleasures, like the beauty of human relationships, the playfulness of animals, and the charm of boating along the coast of Maine—combined with some heartfelt laughter along the way. Author May Davidson writes about her experiences and the life lessons she and her husband, Jim, learned on the water, on the farm, or when traveling together. Davidson encourages readers to appreciate life and to find value in the people and places around them. She loves Maine and feels the state’s landscape, with its blue-green junipers and unpredictable snow storms, can seem as alive as any person.

 

True North

Northern Maine retains qualities of life that many people long for in today’s world. The pace can be slower, nature is close, the beauty is breathtaking, and the people are authentic. Kathryn Olmstead, a transplant from Michigan more than four decades ago, considers it a place mysterious to those who have not been there and unforgettable to those who have. Her collection of essays gleaned from her years writing for Echoes magazine and the Bangor Daily News shares her introductions to rural life and wildlife in an attempt to reveal the universal in the particular—the night sky and ice-out, the people and their cultural roots, and the intimacy with nature in every season. The title True North describes the quality of life portrayed in Olmstead’s essays—an orienting point, internal and geographic, that keeps a person on track in a world sometimes at odds with nature and with basic human goodness. Combined they affirm the value of tradition is still alive in places like Aroostook County, Maine.

 

In Maine

John Cole’s classic In Maine is a sometimes moving, sometimes lyrical, but always personal book that reveals a man examining the progress of his life and a man reveling in a natural world that not only unfolds around him, but also engages him as an active participant. The Islandport Press edition of  In Maine features selected essays that first appeared as “John’s Column” in the Maine Times, the influential newspaper he co-founded in 1968 and guided during its glory days in the 1970s, as well as additional essays that speak to the wondrous rhythms of life in Cole’s signature style and demonstrate an enduring passion for Maine and the outdoors. 

May Davidson, author of Salt and Roses

May Davidson was born in 1929 in Damariscotta, a village along the Maine coast. In 1947, she graduated from nearby Lincoln Academy and a year later married her teenage sweetheart, Jim Davidson. She first met Jim when he spent a week at her family’s inn on Greenland Cove. The couple, despite struggles, were determined to live in Maine and did whatever necessary to make that happen, whether running a chicken farm, raising sheep, building lobster traps, or driving a truck across America. They ultimately found great success when they invented the nowiconic Maine Buoy Bell. Her memoir, Whatever it Takes, was published in 2019. She also wrote a column that appeared for many years in The Lincoln County News, where many of the essays in this book first appeared.

 

Kathryn Olmstead, author of True North

Kathryn Olmstead is a former Bangor Daily News columnist and editor/publisher of Echoes magazine, based in Caribou, Maine, which she co-founded in 1988. She served 25 years on the journalism faculty of the University of Maine in Orono, the last six as associate dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Before joining the University of Maine faculty, she was a correspondent for the Bangor Daily News, editor of the Aroostook Republican weekly newspaper in Caribou, an agricultural columnist for regional and national newspapers in Vermont and Kansas, and district representative for US Senator Bill Cohen. A native of Battle Creek, Michigan, she earned a bachelor of arts in English from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and a master of arts in English and education from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She taught English and journalism in Wisconsin and New Hampshire before moving to Maine in 1974. 

 

John N. Cole, author of In Maine

John N. Cole (1923-2003), avid sport fisherman, amateur naturalist, and honored journalist, started working in Maine at the old Kennebunk Star in 1958. A decade later, he co-founded Maine Times, a unique and daring newspaper that emerged as an influential voice in Maine during the 1970s.His three decades of heartfelt essays – which began as "John's Column" during those early days at the Maine Times – are among the best writing on the outdoors ever produced in the state.After In Maine was first published in 1974, Cole wrote more than a dozen books, many touching similar themes and passions, including Striper, Fishing Came First, Fish of My Years and Life List. Cole also served as editor of the Bath-Brunswick Times Record and the former Brunswick Record and as contributing editor to New Shelter and Outdoor Life magazines. His articles appeared in Time, Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, Life, Esquire, Atlantic Monthly and Smithsonian, among others. Cole received the Yankee Quill Award from the Academy of New England Journalists in 1973 and the Outdoor Life Award for Environmental Writing from President Jimmy Carter in 1979. He was inducted into the Maine Press Hall of Fame in 2000.