Guides Coffee! A How-to Video…
The Bangor Daily News with John Holyoke came out to film me making guides coffee when it was 10 degrees above zero!!
Blog
Small Treasures
One of the highlights of my recent book tour/road trip happened on Martha’s Vineyard when 5 year-old Amber Codding presented me with an artwork from her own hand, one she said she’d drawn especially for me. It is now hanging in my studio in Holden, Maine.
Book Launch a Blast
About 30 people had signed up in advance to be at the Ashlawn Farm Coffee http://farmcoffee.com book launch for Wide and Deep. Others came in during my talk and stood in the back. I always bring a guitar to these events, and at this one, I performed three songs that had to do with the content of the new book. At the end of my 30-minute talk, I opened the floor for questions. This lasted for another half hour. The oldest person in the room was around 84. The youngest was 7. Both of them, and many of the other attendees asked good, engaging questions of the sort that you tend to ponder later.
My heartfelt thanks to the entire Ashlawn Farm Coffee crew who put so much care into this event. Please look in on their website as there are always interesting events going on at Ashlawn.
Back in Bangor, ME, on April 23rd, I’ll be on 92.9 “The Ticket” at 4:45 pm with Rich Kimball and Bruce Pratt, talking about Wide and Deep. The show is broadcast live from from Seasons Grille and Sports Lounge, 427 Main Street, Bangor.
On May 5th, I’ll be talking with students at Fort Kent Valley Middle School, Fort Kent Community High School, and University of Maine at Fort Kent at the Third Annual Fort Kent, Maine Author’s Conference.
I hope to see you somewhere along the way!
Official Book Launch April 12th
Upcoming Book Release Event
Something Fishy from the 19 Century…
The Fish, the Man, and the Spirit
by Leigh Hunt
To a Fish
You strange, astonished-looking, angle-faced,
Dreary-mouthed, gaping wretches of the sea,
Gulping salt-water everlastingly,
Cold-blooded, though with red your blood be graced,
And mute, though dwellers in the roaring waste;
And you, all shapes beside, that fishy be,—
Some round, some flat, some long, all devilry,
Legless, unloving, infamously chaste:—
O scaly, slippery, wet, swift, staring wights,
What is’t ye do? What life lead? eh, dull goggles?
How do ye vary your vile days and nights?
How pass your Sundays ? Are ye still but joggles
In ceaseless wash? Still nought but gapes, and bites,
And drinks, and stares, diversified with boggles?
A Fish Answers
Amazing monster! that, for aught I know,
With the first sight of thee didst make our race
For ever stare! O flat and shocking face,
Grimly divided from the breast below!
Thou that on dry land horribly dost go
With a split body and most ridiculous pace
Prong after prong, disgracer of all grace,
Long-useless-finn’d, haired, upright, unwet, slow!
O breather of unbreathable, sword-sharp air,
How canst exist? How bear thyself, thou dry
And dreary sloth? What particle canst share
Of the only blessed life, the watery?
I sometimes see of ye an actual pair
Go by! linked fin by fin! most odiously.
The Fish Turns Into A Man, And Then Into A Spirit, And Again Speaks
Indulge thy smiling scorn, if smiling still,
O man! and loathe, but with a sort of love;
For difference must itself by difference prove,
And, in sweet clang, the spheres with music fill.
One of the spirits am I, that at their will
Live in whate’er has life—fish, eagle, dove—
No hate, no pride, beneath nought, nor above,
A visiter of the rounds of God’s sweet skill.
Man’s life is warm, glad, sad, ‘twixt loves and graves,
Boundless in hope, honoured with pangs austere,
Heaven-gazing; and his angel-wings he craves:—
The fish is swift, small-needing, vague yet clear,
A cold, sweet, silver life, wrapped in round waves,
Quickened with touches of transporting fear.
– See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23389#sthash.iQ4K2S7J.dpuf
Barred Owl
This guy has decided to use my bird station as a bait site. He’s picking off red squirrels as his appetite dictates.
First Review of New Book…
One fine day on the ice
Wide and Deep debuts!
My new book in hardcover, Wide and Deep: Tales and Recollections From a Master Maine Fishing Guide, will soon arrive in the mail to those who have preordered it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or from Skyhorse Publishing, NY. The first public place where it will be on sale is the Eastern Maine Sportsmen’s Show on the campus of UMaine in Orono in the Field House, Saturday, March 8th 1-3 pm, and Sunday March 9th 2-4 pm. I’ll be hosted by John Holyoke and the Bangor Daily News in their booth at the show. I look forward to shaking hands, signing books, and swapping tales. See you there!