Otherworldly Maine (48 page)

LUCY SUITOR HOLT was born in Knox, Maine, and earned a degree from Rivier College in Nashua, New Hampshire. Now living in New Hampshire, she has served as a board member of The Monadnock Writers' Group. She produced
Occasional Shadows
, an audio CD of her short stories, and her short fiction can also be found in
Whispers from the Shattered Forum
and the online
Moxie Magazine
.

EDWARD KENT (1802–1877) served twice as Maine's governor, 1838–1830 and 1841–1842. During his first term in office, the bloodless Aroostook War broke out and resulted in fixing the disputed boundary between Maine and Canada. Fort Kent was named in his honor. Not generally known as a fiction writer, Kent contributed “A Vision of Bangor in the Twentieth Century” to the so-called “Bangor Book,” published in 1848 as
Voices from the Kenduskeag
to raise funds for a girls' orphanage.

One of the most important writers in America today, Maine native STEPHEN KING has published more than 50 novels, most recently
Duma Key
. His body of work earned the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation in 2003. He is an active philanthropist, providing scholarships for local students and supporting charities in Maine and beyond. Most of the year he lives in Bangor with his wife, writer Tabitha King.

JOHN P. O'GRADY was born in New Jersey, but escaped to the University of Maine to study forestry, believing this was a chance to dwell in deep groves and sequestered places. His environmentalist sensibilities were not encouraged in Nutting Hall, so he went on to pursue graduate studies in literature. He now works full-time as an astrologer in San Francisco. He has authored two books,
Pilgrims to the Wild
and
Grave Goods: Essays of a Peculiar Nature
, and co-edited an anthology,
Literature & the Environment
.

Born in New York to literary parents, EDGAR PANGBORN (1909–1976) made his literary debut pseudonymously, with a mystery novel in 1930 and short stories for the pulp detective and mystery magazines. In the early 1950s he began to write mysteries and science fiction under his own name. His work helped to firmly establish a new “humanist” school of science fiction. The post-apocalyptic
Davy
remains the most famous of his novels. In 2003 he was recognized with the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award. He spent 1939–1942 farming in rural Maine.

JESSICA REISMAN grew up on the east coast of the U.S., was a teenager on the west coast, and now lives in Austin, Texas. She learned to swim in Maine lakes as a child, went to college, raked blueberries, and learned to be a film projectionist there, among other things. She is a writer, reader, and movie aficionado. Her fiction can be found in magazines and anthologies, including
Cross Plains Universe
, edited by Scott Cupp and Joe R. Lansdale, and
Sci Fiction
. Her first novel,
The Z Radiant
, was published in 2004.

MELANIE TEM is a novelist and playwright. The Rocky Mountain Women's Institute awarded her an associateship for 2001–2002. Her novel
Prodigal
won a Bram Stoker Award, as did
The Man on the Ceiling
(written with her husband, writer and editor Steve Rasnic Tem), which also went on to win International Horror Guide and World Fantasy awards. Among her 14 collaborative and solo novels are
Blood Moon, Wilding, Revenant
, and
Daughters
. Also a social worker, she lives in Denver with her husband.

Author of more than 300 published short stories, STEVE RASNIC TEM is a Denver-based writer whose fiction has been honored with the Bram Stoker Award, British Fantasy Award, International Horror Guild Award, and World Fantasy Award. His stories can be found in such annual anthologies as
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Best New Horror
, magazines including
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, and two collections,
City Fishing
and
The Far Side of the Lake
. His co-wrote his novel
The Man on the Ceiling
with his wife, Melanie Tem.

SCOTT THOMAS was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts. To escape urban sprawl, he moved to Maine in 2003 and settled Down East. He is the author of five short story collections, including
Westermead, Over the Darkening Fields
, and
Midnight in New England
. He co-authored the collection
Punktown: Shades of Grey
with his brother Jeffrey Thomas. His fiction has appeared also in the anthologies
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, Crypto-Critters
Volumes 1 and 2 and
Leviathan Three
.

Born in Concord, Massachusetts, American writer and philosopher HENRY DAVID THOREAU (1817–1862) is best known for
Walden; or Life in the Woods
, an account of his two-year stay at Walden Pond where he sought, in relative but not complete isolation, to examine human society.
Walden
and “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience” inspired later political and social activists from Martin Luther King, Jr. to Mahatma Ghandi. He made three trips to Maine, of which he wrote in the collected essays
The Maine Woods
.

TOM TOLNAY founded Birch Brook Press and is managing editor of the literary magazine
Pulpsmith
. His fiction has appeared in the
Saturday Evening Post, Woman's Day, Maine Guide, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
, and other magazines. His short story “The Ghost of F. Scott Fitzgerald,” winner of
Literal Latte
Short Story Award, has been produced as a short film screened at the Toronto International and Hollywood film festivals. His most recent novel is
This is the Forest Primeval
, set in western Maine.

MARK TWAIN is the pen name of Samuel Clemens (1835–1910), one of the most important American writers. Born in Florida, Missouri, Clemens worked first as a printer, then as a Mississippi riverboat pilot. During the Civil War he became a reporter, and soon after his fiction followed, including
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
and
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
, He visited Maine on his lecture tours and summered at York Harbor in 1902.

“Alternate Anxieties,” © 2007 by Karen Jordan Allen; first appeared in
Interfictions: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing
, edited by Delia Sherman and Theodora Goss; reprinted by permission of the author.

“And Dream Such Dreams,” © 2008 by Lee Allred; printed by permission of the author.

“The Autumn of Sorrows,” © 2008 by Scott Thomas; printed by permission of the author.

“Awskonomuk,” © 2008 by Gregory Feeley; printed by permission of the author.

“Bass Fishing with the Enemy,” © 2008 by Daniel Hatch; printed by permission of the author.

“The Bung-Hole Caper,” © 1982 by Tom Easton; first appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction;
reprinted by permission of the author.

“By the Lake,” © 2002 by Jeff Hecht; first appeared in
Analog;
reprinted by permission of the author.

“The Chapter of the Hawk of Gold,” © 1997, 2008 by Noreen Doyle; first appeared in
Realms of Fantasy
; revised and reprinted by permission of the author.

“The County,” © 2008 by Melanie Tem; printed by permission of the author.

“Creation Story,” © 2008 by Steve Rasnic Tem; printed by permission of the author.

“Dance Band on the
Titanic
,” © 1978 by Jack L. Chalker; first appeared in
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
; reprinted by permission of Eva Whitley.

“Dreams of Virginia Dare,” © 2001 by John P. O'Grady; first appeared in
Grave Goods: Essays of a Peculiar Nature
by John P. O'Grady; reprinted by permission of the author.

“Echo,” © 2005 by Elizabeth Hand; first appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
; reprinted by permission of the author.

“Flash Point,” © 1974 by Gardner Dozois; first appeared in
Orbit
13, edited by Damon Knight; reprinted by permission of the author and the author's agents, the Virginia Kidd Agency, Inc.

“The Hermit Genius of Marshville,” © 1998 by Tom Tolnay; first appeared in
Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine
; reprinted by permission of the author.

“Ktaadn” (excerpts) by Henry David Thoreau; first appeared in
The Union Magazine
(1848).

“Longtooth,” © 1970 by Edgar Pangborn; first appeared in
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
; reprinted by permission of Peter S. Beagle.

“The Loves of Alonzo Fitz Clarence and Rosannah Ethelton” by Mark Twain; first appeared in
The Atlantic Monthly
(1878).

“Mrs. Todd's Shortcut,” © 1984 by Stephen King; first appeared in
Redbook;
reprinted by permission of the author.

“Trophy Seekins,” © 2008 by Lucy Suitor Holt; printed by permission of the author.

“A Vision of Bangor, in the Twentieth Century” by Edward Kent; first appeared anonymously in
Voices from the Kenduskeag
, edited anonymously by Jane Sophia Appleton and Cornelia Crosby Barrett (David Bugbee, 1848). Minor typographic errors have been corrected and, for a modern readership, additional paragraph divisions have been introduced in this reprinting.

“When the Ice Goes Out,” © 2008 by Jessica Reisman; printed by permission of the author.

NOREEN DOYLE writes fiction and articles for adults and children. She holds degrees in Anthropology and Art, Nautical Archeology, and Egyptology. Her fiction has appeared in
Fantasy: The Best of the Year 2008 Edition, The Mammoth Book of Egyptian Whodunits
and in
Realms of Fantasy
. She co-edited, with Harry Turtledove,
First Heroes: New Tales of the Bronze Age
, a book that was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. She resides in Gardiner, Maine.