FARMINGTON – On Wednesday, May 19, at 7 p.m. well-known Maine author Susan Hand Shetterly will read at the Farmington Public Library from her new book, Settled in the Wild: Notes from the Edge of Town.
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A dedicated naturalist, a keen-eyed wildlife watcher, a bird rehabilitator, and a conservation activist, Shetterly returns in this book to the subjects that have been at the heart of her writing over the last thirty years: the animals and the people who inhabit the forests, fields, and villages, the bays, inlets, islands, and salt marshes of her home territory on the Maine Coast.
In 1971, after college and graduate school, she moved with her then husband into a rough cabin, minus plumbing and electricity, in Gouldsboro. There she began the settling into the wild and the self-education as a naturalist that provided her with her entry into her writing life, first as a regular contributor to the Maine Times, later to magazines like Yankee, Down East, Birder’s World, and Audubon. In addition to her newspaper and magazine work, Shetterly has written several children’s books, among them the award-winning Shelterwood. Other writing honors include a 1993 Creative Writing Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and Individual Artist Fellowship Grants from the “new” Maine Arts Commission in 1994 and 2001.
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Her first essay collection, The New Year’s Owl, was subtitled Encounters with Animals, People, and the Land They Share, a subtitle that would, in a limited sense, accurately describe this new book but would also fail to suggest its reach both in scope and in depth. Settled in the Wild is, true enough, a collection of notes from the edge of town; each essay can be read in isolation; each one is complete and full in itself. But read in the sequence Shetterly has given them and read as a whole, they come together as what they are, an autobiographical account of growing up, of passing from youthful innocence and inexperience to the hard-earned skills and insights of a mature life and a mature art.
After the reading, light refreshments will be served, and Kenny Brechner of Devaney, Doak, and Garrett, Booksellers, will have copies of Settled in the Wild available for sale and for Ms. Shetterly to sign.
