News
I spent the morning recently at Lincoln Academy in Newcastle speaking to the students about my books, the magazine, and the importance of following your dreams. The kids welcomed me with this display in the hall. How could I not feel like a celebrity?
Over at the day job I have an Editor's Note about my nominee for the title. E.B. White is remembered today as the author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little, as an important editor in the founding of the New Yorker, and as a teacher who has instructed generations of writers on how to craft better sentences through the book he co-authored with William Strunk, The Elements of Style.
In my mind, however, he will always be the touchstone I use to write about my home state. No author, before or sense, has captured Maine's landscape and people, but most of all it's culture, with the same precision. White had a gimlet eye.
I spent a wet Wednesday riding along with the crew of "North Woods Law" while they filmed Warden Kris McCabe on his patrol. I'll tell the story in a future issue of Down East, but here's a fun photo of me in the ballistic (technically not bulletproof) vest I was required to wear for the ride-along. By the end of the day it felt like it weighed a ton.
Audiofile magazine, which reviews audiobooks, praises one of the unsung people who work with me to bring Mike Bowditch to life: the narrator of the audio version:
Henry Leyva gives a solid performance in this third book in the Mike Bowditch mystery series....Leyva's varied Maine accents are convincing and interesting, and make each character distinct. His portrayal of Lucas Sewall, an odd child who figures prominently in the story, is perfect. Leyva is at his best, however, portraying the complicated Bowditch with a quiet, even voice that captures the capable but struggling game warden.
Many "readers" of my series have come to the books via the audio CDs and downloads. Since it's a part of the process that occurs after I am done with the writing and editing, I often lose touch with that fact myself—until, that is, I get out on tour and hear from fans. I'm grateful to the professionals at Macmillan Audio for making me look so good.
Sometimes it makes no sense to me either. I spent the past three days in the Maine North Woods, miles from any cell towers, fishing for late-season brook trout (landed a beautiful orange-bellied male with a kype), practicing my moose call (still needs considerable work), and bagging two ruffed grouse (called "pa'tridge" here) in the rain. I arrived home grubby, stubbly, and glad for a shower. Tomorrow I have a long day at the office preparing to ship the November issue of Down East to the printer. And within thirty-six hours I will be at the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention in Cleveland where I will appear on a panel titled "Murder in the Great Outdoors." Somehow it all ties together, but as I wash one set of camouflage and blaze orange clothing and pack another outfit of black blazers and Blundstones, it all feels very haphazard, frenetic, and definitely unplanned.
