Editor’s Note: The Maine Monitor is partnering with Peter Neill of the World Ocean Observatory to bring you this hour-long interview podcast.
Conversations from the Pointed Firs is a monthly, interview-style podcast during which Peter talks with authors and artists who live in Maine, work in Maine, or otherwise derive their creativity from the essence of Maine.
The guest for this episode 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.
Legler teaches creative writing and English at the University of Maine Farmington, where she is also the Director of the Campus and Community Garden.
She and Peter discuss her most recent book, an intimate portrait of life in Maine, as well as the power of observation for creative writers, and her Master’s of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School, where her interests focused on exploring human connections to the sacred in the natural world.
Her writing has garnered two Pushcart Prizes, a Notable Essay designation in Best American Essays, the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment creative writing award, a starred review in Kirkus Reviews, and was a finalist for the Steinberg Essay Prize and the Publishing Triangle Judy Grahn Award for Lesbian Nonfiction.
