Our guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is CLAIRE ACKROYD, author, inspector of organic maple syrup production in Maine. Claire Ackroyd, author of Murder in the Maple Woods, her first novel, a detective story set in the sugar camps in the northern forests of Maine, published in cooperation with Maine Authors Publishing, and a finalist in the 2021 Maine Literary Awards. She is a landscape designer, and for many years has been studying the history of production and conducting certifications of organic maple syrup in Maine. 

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs, host Peter Neill engages in a fascinating conversation with Ian Ludders, author of "Didn't Do Much but a Little of Everything", a micro-history of Dalton Raynes who's workday diary from his 19th year, in 1897, serves as the book's center, and of Bob Quinn who worked the land up into the 2000s. Ian Ludders, who annotated the text, worked as a day laborer with Bob Quinn before he moved to the island to work and fish with Bob and to manage Eagle for the Quinn family. "Didn't Do Much but a Little of Everything" encapsulates life on the small community of Eagle Island, and was produced primarily for the small community of people who know and love it, though it will be of interest to anyone who loves Maine, island, and coastal living.

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs host Peter Neill sits down with Peter Ralston. Peter is a marine photographer, photographing the coast of Maine since 1978, drawn especially to the working communities that define the coast’s enduring character. Instrumental in forming the Island Institute in 1983, Peter Ralston served as its executive vice-president until 2010, and contributed most of the photography and served as art director for the Institute's Island Journal since its inception. Peter's work has been reproduced in many books and magazines, exhibited in galleries, collections and museums throughout the United States and abroad. He is currently working on a major book about the Maine coast. Although, as a young man, Ralston studied very briefly under Ansel Adams, he acknowledges the greater artistic influence of a lifetime of association with the Wyeth family: close friends and life-changing mentors. He continues to spend as much time as he possibly can on and around islands.

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs host Peter Neill sits down with Lucas St. Clair.
Lucas was born in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine and spent his childhood in a hand-built log cabin with few amenities and a focus on living in harmony with nature. After graduating from high school Lucas immersed himself in outdoor wilderness adventures: hiking the Appalachian Trail, paddling the Northern Forest Canoe Trail, and fine-tuning leadership and technical skills with the National Outdoor Leadership School in Patagonia. He then pursued an interest in organic and sustainable food and graduated from the prestigious Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School in London. Following his graduation, he worked in the food and wine industry for nearly a decade in New York City, Seattle, and Maine. Lucas is an avid fly fisherman, boater, and mountain climber. Lucas is now the President of Elliotsville Foundation, Inc., a private operating foundation in Maine whose mission is to advance the dynamic relationship of environmental justice and community-based economic development in Maine.  On August 24th, 2016, Elliotsville Foundation completed a multi-year campaign to establish Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument with an 89,000-acre donation of land to the National Park Service. Elliotsville continues to support Katahdin Woods and Waters as well as conduct work to build more outdoor recreational infrastructure in Maine. Lucas is a former congressional candidate in ME-2 and now serves on the boards of the Quimby Family Foundation, Maine Conservation Voters, Friends of Katahdin Woods and Waters, and the Northern Forest Center. He chairs the National Board of the Trust for Public Land and serves on the National Park Foundation’s National Council. He lives in Falmouth, Maine with his wife, Yemaya, and their two children.

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs host Peter Neill sits down with Peter Ralston, who has been photographing the coast of Maine since 1978, drawn especially to the working communities that define the coast’s enduring character. Instrumental in forming the Island Institute in 1983, Peter Ralston served as its executive vice-president until 2010, and contributed most of the photography and served as art director for the Institute's Island Journal since its inception. Peter's work has been reproduced in many books and magazines, exhibited in galleries, collections and museums throughout the United States and abroad. He is currently working on a major book about the Maine coast. Although, as a young man, Ralston studied very briefly under Ansel Adams, he acknowledges the greater artistic influence of a lifetime of association with the Wyeth family: close friends and life-changing mentors. He continues to spend as much time as he possibly can on and around islands.

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs, host Peter Neill sits down with Siri Beckman, visual artist, wood engraver, print maker, and co-author of the new book "The Prints of Siri Beckman: Engraving a Sense of Place." Beckman, born in Chicago, Illinois, moved to Maine in 1975, and was called to wood engraving quite by accident, and has been practicing the art form for more than forty years. Beckman’s early wood engravings are strongly influenced by her surroundings and daily life in the Maine fishing town of Stonington where she lived. She recently moved to Bath, Maine, where she continues to maintain her studio. 

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs host Peter Neill sits down with Kristie Billings. A wearer of many hats, Kristie is a long-time DJ for ‘Daydream Nation’ on the WERU Community Radio in Orland, Maine. From small-town grocery clerk to working in a fish market, owning her own shoe store, being an Arts Educator at a local theater, a lobster fisher, and an antiques seller, Kristie has done it all. Kristie comes from a long line of lovers of the sea: fishermen, clamdiggers, and sardine packers. The ocean is home. She is a poet, a photographer, and a year-round swimmer. She is currently living in Ellsworth, Maine, and a native of Stonington, on Deer Isle in downeast Maine. A great lover of music, art, and life, Kristie is drawn to beauty, even in the ordinary, the mundane and the unnoticed. Her latest book, "Sea Witch: Photographs, Poems and Forget Me Nots from a Mainer Growing Up" (Seaport Books, Nov 2023) is filled with images and words of the sea, nature, folk art, dolls, loss, grief, love, acceptance, rage, music, and life. 

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs, host Peter Neill sits down with Gary Lawless, poet, bookstore owner, book editor, publisher, and educator. He has published many books of poetry and co-owns Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick and owns Blackberry Books Publishing in Nobleboro. He has run writing residencies in Newfoundland, Alaska, Italy, and Maine, and community writing workshops for adults with disabilities, unhoused, refugee and immigrant populations, and veterans groups.

Our guest this first month of 2024 on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is LAUREEN LABAR, recently retired curator at the Maine State Museum and author of "Maine Quilts: 250 Years of Comfort and Community", published in 2021 by Down East Books. She and Peter discuss quilts and quilting in Maine, as an example of unique craft, history, and social engagement invoking the spirit of Maine.

This month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs host Peter Neill sits down with Sarah Alexander, Executive Director of MOFGA (the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association.) Sarah has been in her position since, 2018, and has over 20 years of experience advocating for sustainable, local and fair food systems. This year MOFGA is celebrating the 50th anniversary of its founding. Peter and Sarah discuss the historical moment of MOFGA's inception, the state of farming in Maine, and what MOFGA might become over the next 50 years. 

Conversations from the Pointed Firs is a monthly audio series with Maine-connected authors, artists and innovators discussing books, art and creative projects that invoke the spirit of Maine, its history, its ecology, its culture, and its contribution to community and quality of life. Online at pointedfirs.org