Conversations From the Pointed Firs

Our guests this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs are Julia Lane and Fred Gosbee, musicians and musicologists, who for many years have been researching their personal heritage by exploring the traditional music connections between the Celtic lands, the Canadian Maritimes and Maine. In this Conversation from the Pointed Firs episode we explore the early music of Maine, and our cultural h...

This month we are rebroadcasting a July 2021 conversation with Rob McCall, who passed away in April. We, and many in Maine and beyond, are mourning the loss of this great man: minister, fiddler, writer and creator of the Awanadjo Almanack. Rob and Peter discuss the tradition of Nature writing in Maine, the characteristics of the genre, and the various methodologies and principles that underlie thi...

Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Peter Beckford , Maine farmer and storyteller who will introduce the work of the late Holman F. Day, journalist, poet, and raconteur, whose accounts of neighbors and friends, often in dialect, are classic evocations of the spirit of Maine.

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs we have Martha White, writer, editor and literary executor for the estate of her grandfather, E.B. White.   In 2006, White edited the revised and updated Letters of E. B. White (HarperCollins) and, since then, she has compiled three more collections of E. B. White's work: In the Words of E. B. White: Quotations from America's Most Compani...

Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Dean Lunt, Editor-in-Chief, Islandport Press on the writings of Ruth Moore. DEAN LUNT is founder and the editor-in-chief at Islandport Press, an award-winning publisher of books and other media that strives to tell stories that are rooted in the sensibilities of Maine and New England. An eighth-generation native of downeast Maine, Dean...

The guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Samaa Abdurraqib, Executive Director of the Maine Humanities Council, educator, poet, writer, advocate and justice organizer.  

Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Stuart Kestenbaum, arts innovator and poet. STUART KESTENBAUM is the author of six collections of poems, most recently Things Seem to Be Breaking (Deerbrook Editions 2021), and a collection of essays The View from Here (Brynmorgen Press).  He was the host of the Maine Public Radio program Poems from Here and was the host/curator of the...

November's guests on Conversations from the Pointed Firs are David Greenham, Executive Director of the Maine Arts Commission, and David Hopkins, Chair. They and host Peter Neill discuss the arts in Maine, the creative economy, and the essential contribution and expression of the arts and the creative spirit of Maine. 

Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Jefferson Navicky, author, poet, playwright, and archivist for the Maine Women Writers Collection. He and host Peter Neill  discuss the long history of women writers in Maine, their work well-known and sometimes forgotten, representing an essential contribution and expression of the unique place and creative spirit of Maine.   Conversa...

Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, poet, fiction writer, teacher and non-profit leader. Gibson's first collection of poems, "Death of a Ventriloquist", won the Vassar Miller Prize and was featured by Poets & Writers as one of a dozen debut collections to watch. His second book, "Deke Dangle Dive" was published by CavanKer...

Our guest for this month is Kerri Arsenault, author of “Milltown: Reckoning with What Remains”, published in 2020 by St. Martins Press.  Kerri is winner of many distinguished literary prizes such as the 2021 Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award and the Maine Literary Award for Non-Fiction. “Milltown” is a book of narrative non-fiction, investigative memoir and cultural criticism that illiminates...

Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is Julia Bouwsma, poet laureate of Maine and author of “Midden”, an award-winning collection of poems published by Fordham University Press in 2018, an intimate and raw set of poems addressing a dark and important piece of Maine history that transpired on Malaga Island in Casco Bay in 1912.

Host Peter Neill's guest this month is Gretchen Legler, author of Woodsqueer: Crafting a Sustainable Rural Life published by Trinity University Press, an evocative examination of the back-to-the-land experience in Maine with her partner, Ruth Hill. Gretchen is a professor of creative writing at the University of Maine Farmington where she lives. She and Peter discuss her most recent book, an...

Our guest for March is Kimberly Ridley, science writer, essayist, award-winning author, and resident of Brooklin, Maine. Her books for children include The Secret Pool and The Secret Bay , both illustrated by Rebekah Raye, and Extreme Survivors: Animals That Time Forgot. And published this year is a new book of essays and historical renderings of natural things: Wild Designs: Nature’s Architects ....

Our guest for February is William (Bill) Carpenter, author of "Silence", published by Islandport Press in 2021, as well as other works of poetry and fiction. He and host Peter Neill discuss the new book; the traumas and the scars of war; the past and future of human ecology and the importance of better understanding and living within our natural systems; the complexities of social strati...

Guests for this edition of Conversations from the Pointed Firs are Glenn Libby and Antonia Small, authors of the book "Caught: Time, Place, Fish". Glenn is a working fisherman, proprietor of Port Clyde Fresh Catch, and an advocate for fishing policy in Maine; Toni is a photographer, educator and ocean advocate. In this episode they discuss their book, portraits and essays on fisheries an...

Peter Neill’s guest this month is Lincoln Paine, maritime historian and, author of "The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World", and “Down East: An Illustrated History of Maritime Maine”. This is a fascinating discussion about the history of our coastal places in Maine--from the days when England declared every white pine in the State to be the King’s property, to the futu...

This month's Pointed Firs conversation is with Christopher Packard, author of "Mythical Creatures of Maine: Fantastic Beasts from Legend and Folklore". Chris is a full-time high school science teacher, and prior to taking up teaching and writing he worked as an ecological restoration technician, field biologist, naturalist, and outdoor educator. His new book explores rich Maine folk...

This month we're talking with Kathy and Bill Kenny, authors of "Historic Taverns and Tea Rooms of Maine" published by the History Press of Charleston, South Carolina. The conversation centers around the social history and political culture of Maine as nurtured in unexpected places. 

Our guest this week is Earl H Smith, a native of Waterville, Maine,  a 40-year veteran of Colby College, former dean of the college, recently retired, and author of "Downeast Genius: From Earmuffs to Motor Cars, Maine Inventors who Changed the World"

This month our guest is Gordon Bok, sailor, singer, songwriter, storyteller, woodworker, sculptor, and keeper of Atlantic memory and traditional music. He and host Peter Neill will discuss traditional ways of thinking that are unique to Maine, to the Atlantic coast, and to the cultural flow of humanity as informed and shaped by our ocean world. 

This month's guest is Rob McCall, minister and musician and creator of the Awanadjo Almanack heard on WERU-FM and circulated across Maine in various publications and through his most recent book, Some Glad Morning , Holding Hope in Apocalyptic Times . Rob and Peter discuss the tradition of Nature writing in Maine, the characteristics of the genre, and the various methodologies and principles...

What is the spirit of Maine? Conversations from the Pointed Firs is a new one-hour interview program with artists and authors attempting to capture the elusive elements of this special place in which we live. Our guest this week is Chris Newell, director of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, proud citizen of the Passamaquoddy Tribe, a member of the Mystic River Singers, educator and a storyteller. The...

What is the spirit of Maine? Conversations from the Pointed Firs is a new one-hour interview program with artists and authors attempting to capture the elusive elements of this special place in which we live. Our first guest  is Mihku Paul, indigenous native of Maine, poet, educator and activist. She and host Peter Neill will discuss concepts of wilderness, relationship with nature as established...