The newest addition to my list is someone I’ve come to know and admire since moving to Eastport.
Lee, a longtime high school teacher and valued community figure who has written short fiction for most of her life, finally released a collection of 12 stories in 2022, and it’s a treasure. Island Secrets is rife with every-day, blue-collar existence on a remote fishing island in Maine – veiled Eastport – but the secrets are those that lurk unspoken in the open. Consider the trials of harvesting scallops in the dead of winter, which runs through the final story. Few consumers have a clue to the dedicated labor involved in the occupation (I’m tempted to call it a profession, including the fact that it is highly licensed and regulated) or of the domestic tensions that accompany the precarious business.
She’s original, a consequence of digging intuitively into the world in front of her, with her prose infused with the precision of her succinct poems as well.
Jnana's Red Barn 