Just Write Books - Blog

Just write books presents writing award for maine nonfiction

11/22/2019

The ability to write a story is a unique skill, and Maine has a long history of being the home of many a writer. To seek new talent and give a platform to Maine authors, the Topsham Public Library hosts its annual competition, Joy of the Pen, bringing together local writers and celebrating Maine stories. Just Write Books sponsors the Maine-related Nonfiction Award, and the winners were selected by Nancy Randolph.

Emma Gibbon, Topsham Library, presents awards to Mike Giggey (Honorable Mention) and Robin Hansen (First Place).

The winner for 2019 was Robin Hanson for her short story “Eternally Green”, a tale of a quest for a campsite. It was chosen for “a great story, clear characters, and an O. Henry ending,” This year’s Honorable Mention went to Mike Giggey for his short story “The Budding Outdoorsman,” about a fishing expedition he shared with his grandson, which is “a story that tugs the heart then delivers an environmental message.”

Robin Hansen has worked as a journalist and written about knitting, but pens stories and poems when deeply moved. Her articles and stories have appeared in regional and national publications from Yankee Magazine to Family Fun and Saturday Evening Post.

Mike Giggey is a semi-retired environmental engineer with Wright-Pierce of Topsham, former chair of the Topsham Planning Board, and life-long advocate for Maine and its water resources.

Storytime with Maine Children’s Book Authors

11/1/2019

Bring the kids to the Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant Street, Brunswick, Maaine 04011 for storytime Sunday, November 17th, from 4:30 to 5:30 pm. Two Maine authors, Vance Bessey and Norma K. Salway, will be reading their books Awk the Awkward Penguin and My Maine School Bus Driver.

In Awk the Awkward Penguin, written and illustrated by Vance Bessey, kids will learn about how their differences can really be their strengths. When a young penguin hatches with flippers far too long for his body, making swimming and belly-sliding difficult, he is dubbed Awk by his peers. Feeling like a misfit, Awk sets out to find his place in the world, and along the way, he discovers that his long flippers are as much a gift as a curse--that being different can be a wonderful thing.

In My Maine School Bus Driver by Norma K. Salway, kids will meet Mr. Gosselin and will learn about the importance of his job as he delivers children to and from school in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Eliciting laughs and groans from his young passengers, Mr. Gosselin announces gag lunches over the speaker, highlights Maine wildlife along the route, and enriches the commute of his students while keeping safety his top priority.

Vance Bessey is a published author, illustrator and cartoonist as well as an inventor with registered patents. A graduate of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Narrative Art, Bessey is the author of the young adult novel, Orphans of the Storm, published by Dreaming Big Publications. He has created comic strips The Edge and Only in Maine and has illustrated numerous comic books, and teaches classes on illustration, writing, and narrative art.

Norma Kimball Salway, parent, grandparent, and graduate of the University of Southern Maine retired from teaching in 2009. During her thirty-four years in education, she taught students aged four to seven. Her hobbies include writing, kayaking, gardening, antiquing, and crafting. My Maine School Bus Driver is Salway’s fifth book since retirement. She continues to write and lives in Portland, Maine, with her Maine Coon cat, Gusty.

Just Write Books LLC, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, featuring Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals.

My Maine School Bus Driver

9/4/2019

Local author, Norma K. Salway will sign books at Maine Line Products, 23 Main St, Bethel, ME 04217 on September 21 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. My Maine School Bus Driver written by Salway and published by Just Write Books in Topsham is a children’s picture book about a school bus driver, his bus and his passengers.

Bonjour! Welcome to Bus Number 14. My Maine School Bus Driver by Norma K. Salway introduces Mr. Gosselin and highlights the importance of his job as he delivers children to and from school in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. From pointing out wildlife along the edge of the road, naming an unexpected eight-legged stowaway, to announcing gag lunches over the speaker, Mr. Gosselin enriches the commute of the elementary school students every morning.

The cheerful Mr. Gosselin enjoys inciting uproarious laughs (or groans) from his young passengers, but it never distracts from his top priority of keeping the children safe. In her newest children’s book, Sawyer seamlessly blends bus safety rules into a charming glimpse of Maine school bus rides.

My Maine School Bus Driver is brought to life through the whimsical illustrations and authentic interactions between Mr. Gosselin, his passengers and their families. Moments that are rarely acknowledged in everyday life are given their time to shine in this heartwarming tale.

“Norma Salway has written a delightful story and an effective teacher resource all in one. Her book is a wonderful addition to our school bus safety curriculum.”
–Jason Manjourides, principal of Pond Cove Elementary School

Dick Gosselin drove for the Cape Elizabeth school district for decades. He completed a fifty-year broadcasting career in Maine and Boston, and even hosted the quiz show, “So You Think You Know Maine.” He worked as a videographer, conducted bus tours and was active in Big Brothers, Big Sisters. He is now retired but reminisces about interacting with students on his bus on their way to and from school.

Norma Kimball Salway, parent, grandparent, and graduate of the University of Southern Maine retired from teaching in 2009. During her thirty-four years in education, she taught students aged four to seven. Her hobbies include writing, kayaking, gardening, antiquing, and crafting. My Maine School Bus Driver is Salway’s fifth book since retirement. She continues to write and lives in Portland, Maine, with her Maine Coon cat, Gusty.

Just Write Books LLC, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals.

The People & the idiots - author Talk and book signing

8/16/2019

August 28, 6:00pm
Topsham Public Library
25 Foreside Rd., Topsham

Daniel Hawes will be giving a brief author talk starting at 6:00 pm at the Topsham Public Library followed by a Q&A and book signing of his debut memoir, The People & The Idiots: Surviving a Cult Childhood.

In his harrowing memoir, Hawes recounts surviving his childhood trapped within the Synergias: the cult founded by the infamous John Polk Allen.

Copies of The People & The Idiots will be available for purchase at the event.

Separated from his mother, father and his two siblings, Hawes experienced torment and abuse at the hands of the synergists. The book details his life from the time his parents first joined the group, to when he was finally able to take control of his life as a young man.
Hawes’ tale is one of child abuse and neglect in a cult environment. The children were forced to work hour after hour, ordered and battered by adults. While names have been changed and faces blurred, the experiences themselves are very real. The recollections are sure to bring a chill to the spine of any reader.

“Nothing is more telling about an intentional community than how it treats and teaches children. Daniel Hawes describes in visceral detail his horrifying experience growing up among the Synergists led by Johnny Dolphin Allen. I first started tracking Allen’s cult in 1975. The People & the Idiots gave me deeper insight into how pathologically elitist and inhumane Allen’s teachings were.” - Joe Szimhart, Cult Study Expert

In 1994, between his time fighting fires in Montana and moving to Maine, Hawes and others who had grown up in the Synergias and left came forward to speak of their experiences for an article published in the Arizona Daily Star. Later, he was urged by the late Herb Rosedale, Esq. to write The People & the Idiots, to expose the truth of the Synergias on a wider scope than one article.

“Ultimately, Hawes’s narrative is one of triumph, as he manages to escape the cult, adjust to life in the larger world, and forge an independent identity. Hawes has a remarkable, often shocking story to tell, with wide resonance for the world today. In The People & the Idiots, he tells that story in precise and often heartbreaking detail. Readers will not soon forget this vivid memoir.” - Professor Shawn Rosenheim, Williams College.

Just Write Books LLC, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals.

Let Tom Seymour help you get your big fish

7/31/2019

Get your copy today

In Getting Your Big Fish, Registered Maine Guide Tom Seymour teaches all you need to know about rods, reels, lines, bait, and more. He’ll reel you in with his tips and tricks backed up by many years’ worth of personal anecdotes and experience with landing fish. Keep it with your tackle. It’s a better fishing tool than any flashy lure.

“Tom is able to convey his knowledge and experience to his readers using an easy-going, informal writing style—heavy on the factual information; light on pretense and grandstanding." –Will Lund, Editor, The Maine Sportsman.

Despite routinely catching the largest fish of all, people who troll for trout, salmon and togue still represent a minority of Maine’s anglers. Trollers need never contend with the fly-fishing crowds, and their tackle permits them to send their bait down deep where the biggest fish await.

Many people still associate trolling as a sedentary sport using bulky gear and tackle, but heavy and unwieldy gear is a thing of the past. Seymour provides a thorough and comprehensive guide of the advancements made to trolling gear. Lines are new and improved, rods and reels are thinner, making gear lighter and stronger than ever before. “So if you ever entertained any notion of pursuing the art of trolling, there was never a better time to do so than now. And get set to hook on to some of the biggest trout you ever saw,” urges Seymour.

The age-old practice of lake trolling has now become the wave of the future. Getting Your Big Fish by Tom Seymour will help anglers to catch that wave

Seymour’s guide to trolling the lakes and rivers of Maine is packed full of the secret tips needed for an angler to finally catch fish that can be measured in pounds, not inches. At which depth are fish hiding in a cold-water lake? What lure is the most effective for brook trout? Which season will provide your best chance to catch a trophy fish? Getting Your Big Fish is ready to serve as your quick reference when you’re floundering.

The age-old practice of lake trolling has now become the wave of the future. Getting Your Big Fish by Tom Seymour will help anglers to catch that wave.

“Tom is able to convey his knowledge and experience to his readers using an easy-going, informal writing style—heavy on the factual information; light on pretense and grandstanding. Because of his vast knowledge of the flora and fauna of the natural world, Tom Seymour sets his fishing experiences in the proper environmental context —revealing why lakes turn over, how fish behave differently after ice-out, and the manner in which anglers and their quarry fit into the seasonal cycles of lakes, ponds, streams and brooks.
With Getting Your Big Fish: Trolling Maine Waters, Tom makes an invaluable contribution to the body of timeless literary works that will allow us all become more effective, efficient and productive anglers.” –Will Lund, Editor, The Maine Sportsman

An avid writer as well as a naturalist, Seymour writes four regular columns and a multitude of features including his popular “Maine Wildlife” for The Maine Sportsman Magazine. Seymour's credits include articles in other outdoor publications as well as published books including, Forager's Notebook, Wild Plants of Maine, Hidden World Revealed: Musings Of A Maine Naturalist, Getting Your Big Fish: Trolling Maine Waters and coming soon Wild Critters of Maine. All from Just Write Books. He lives in a small cabin in Waldo, Maine.

Just Write Books LLC, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals.

Russian Historian tells His Story

5/24/2019

Robert Williams' autobiography could be the template for your own

Robert Williams describes the world that surrounds him and his family as he travels distance and time through his years. He has included photos of family and places. His story is flavored with interest and good humor.

In From Away: Maine Origins of a Russian Historian, Williams dives into his genealogy and reveals that many of his ancestors lived in or summered in Maine. He ties his and his wife’s blood to the land pointing to his family going to its summer camp on Kezar Lake in Lovell, Maine, generations on. Music is a recurring theme in Williams' life and he has sang with barbershop quartets in most of the communities where he landed. But more than anything else, Williams has always been a writer. His jobs required it and he enjoyed adding to the body of Russian history.

Robert (right) and his step-brother, John Vinton, stand atop Baldface with more mountains in the background. Williams's love of the mountains and hiking began early.

Since his youth, the camp on Kezar Lake has gone through many changes. Attempts from his father at getting electricity installed led to proper equipment being brought in until the lake house was properly wired. Williams learned cutthroat versions of bridge, hearts, and canasta from his grandmother between going hiking, boating, and fishing. Neighbors through the years made their summers different all the time. Some allowed Williams and his family to walk on their docks, sharing the lake. One neighbor in particular decided to shoot at people trying to walk on her dock, scaring off local fishermen.

Williams relocated from one place to another in his time as a professor, working in North Carolina, DC, Munich, and many other places, teaching Russian History. He went to that camp on the lake every year as an adult until he finally retired from his job as a professor. Then, Williams moved to Lovell, Maine, and subsequently to Topsham, Maine.

Kezar Lake, the view from the family summer camp and the location of many of Williams fond memories.

Williams's book, The Historian's Toolbox is being released in its fourth edition. His autobiography brings to fourteen the number of books he has penned.

Just Write Books LLC, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals.

Bob Beringer's Guide to Living Unafraid

3/11/2019

Cover of the book Living Unafraid A the End of Life

Robert (Bob) and Peggy Beringer shared a 59-year marriage, including the final two years in which Peggy weakened and died. Bob then wrote the story of their life together and how they managed its concluding months.

“Living Unafraid at the End of Life” is utterly factual and explicit about what happened and how they felt about it. Somehow it does so in a very comforting and reassuring way.

It is a quietly inspiring little book.

About the Author: Robert (Bob) Beringer of Topsham, an unretired former Presbyterian minister who is volunteer chaplain at the Thorton Hall rehab/nursing facility and leader of Community Bible Studies at The Highlands, where he also co-chairs Vesper Services, and he is chair of the welcome committee at The Highlands.

Born in Basking Ridge, N.J., Bob holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell and two master’s from Princeton Theological Seminary.

Peggy Beringer

Robert Beringer

He began his ministry as associate minister in Bound Brook, N.J., in 1959, then was minister at Hopewell (N.J.) Presbyterian Church for 20 years. Later, he served as minister at the Metuchen Presbyterian Church for 18 years, concurrently lecturing at Princeton and serving as visiting minister at six other churches.

During this time, he started his summer service at Culver Lake Christian Chapel in Bashville, N.J., and continued for 23 years. He returned to Basking Ridge as Associate Pastor, then Pastor. While there, he began his connection with the Presbyterian Nursing Homes of New Jersey, which includes 3,500 nursing homes.

He moved to Maine in 2013 to “retire” at The Highlands.

Bob is widowed from his beloved wife of 59 years. The couple raised four children and loved eight grandchildren.

Just Write Books, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals.

The People & the Idiots

3/8/2019

Daniel Hawes's Dedication of The People & the Idiots
To all children
(young and old)
who were raised in abusive cults
and now seek freedom.

The People and the Idiots by Daniel Hawes is a true account of a man who grew up in a cult. His parents had joined a group of people who called themselves synergists, led by a man named John Polk Allen. Hawes had experienced torment and abuse at the hands of the synergists he grew up with, split from his mother, his father, and his two siblings. The book details his life from when he, at a very young age, remembered his parents joining this group to when he got his life going his way as a young man.

From being forced to work hour after hour and day after day, to mandatory drama practices, to being ordered around and battered by the adults, Hawes’s tale is one of child abuse and neglect in this cult environment. He made friends only with the other children, who were called people, and collectively hated the adults, called idiots in the Synergias they called home. While names have been changed and faces blurred, the experiences themselves are very real. The recollections are sure to bring a chill to the spine of any reader. “... Everyone had been abused in some way, some much worse than I.”

In 1994, between his time fighting fires in Montana and moving to Maine, he and others who had grown up in and left the Synergias came forward and spoke of their experiences for an article published in the Arizona Daily Star. Later on, he was urged by the late Herb Rosedale, Esq. to write The People and the Idiots, in order to expose the truth of the Synergias to the world in a wider scope than one article.

“Ultimately, Hawes’s narrative is one of triumph, as he manages to escape the cult, adjust to life in the larger world, and forge an independent identity, Hawes has a remarkable, often shocking story to tell, with wide resonance for the world today. In The People & the Idiots, he tells that story in precise and often heartbreaking detail. Readers will not soon forget this vivid memoir.” ~ Professor Shawn Rosenheim, Williams College.

“Nothing is more telling about an intentional community than how it treats and teaches children. Daniel Hawes describes in visceral detail his horrifying experience growing up among the Synergists led by Johnny Dolphin Allen. I first started tracking Allen’s cult in 1975. The People & the Idiots gave me deeper insight into how pathologically elitist and inhumane Allen’s teachings were.” ~ Joe Szimhart, Cult Study Expert

Just Write Books, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals. This year, JWB added the High Point Books imprint to expand its reach beyond the borders of Maine.

Woodshed on the Moon: Chute Responds to Thoreau in Poetry

3/6/2019

Robert M. Chute lives in Poland, Maine

Robert M. Chute returns with the republication of his book filled with poetry centered on Henry David Thoreau, Woodshed on the Moon. He has read Thoreau’s work throughout his life, then wrote his first response poem to Thoreau’s first journal entry. The book itself is filled with his musings in relation to Thoreau, hence the dedication to the philosopher. Its introduction reveals the meaning of the title, in that it stems directly from a quote of Thoreau, in which he says, “The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and at length the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.” Thus, the title, Woodshed on the Moon.

With a gentle voice, Chute talks about simple goings-on among philosophical pieces, as with the poems In the Maine Woods and Sugaring Off. Other poems have both real-world wanderings and philosophical wonderings, direct addresses to Thoreau, musings alongside his spirit, and so much more. Each poem is beautifully crafted, sparking a little bit of the feeling Chute must have felt as he was writing and refining them. Each one elevates Thoreau with reverence.

The cover of the book Woodshed on the Moon

A drawing of Walden's Cabin

Succession
My years have seen the overgrowth
of stony pasture and the brush-bordered
trout-tumble of Clark’s Brook. We accept
casual acceptance of grass, goldenrod,
thistle, gray birch and pine. But suddenly
surveyor’s flags appear. Scarlet bunting
marks pinned corners and blazed line.
chainsaw, tractor, builder, and the people
follow: crabs creeping from borrowed
shell to borrowed shell. Long ago
in Concord Thoreau knew, in dreams
saw the Devil hold the rod. Henry sighted,
signaled, and a line was drawn.

Just Write Books, an independent publishing company based in Topsham, Maine, publishes Maine books by Maine authors telling Maine stories. JWB uses its trademarked High Point Publishing System with state-of-the-art technology mixed with old-fashioned writing, editing, publishing, and marketing skills to help writers become authors and authors reach their publishing goals. This year, JWB added the High Point Books imprint to expand its reach beyond the borders of Maine.

Maine Guide Shares Allagash stories in New Book

2/15/2019

The cover of the book

“Through experiences of my own, I have discovered how to camp comfortably using old techniques mixed with a small collection of modern equipment. People who know me wonder how I stay alive, and why so many odd things occur around me. I don’t have a logical answer to these questions, but I do claim to enjoy the outdoors more than most, and I’m willing to try almost anything in the seclusion of my second home, the forests of Maine,” so says Jeffrey Howatt, Master Maine Guide.

With a witty voice and an upbeat attitude, Jeffrey Howatt relates many adventures on the Allagash Waterway, St. Croix, and Sandy Rivers spent among leading groups to enjoy the outdoors, taking people out camping, and handling his math students. Among the stories are tips and tricks that can aid anyone going camping in the Maine wilderness, especially, as Howatt relates that help can be a day or two away.

“Maine’s abundance of nature offers thousands of ecosystems, each performing in their own private theater, which captures our interests and provides enjoyment free to those who seek it,” Howatt enthused.

Photo of the Author, Jeffrey Howatt

A moose swimming through the river

The tales are told in short form, with a new story every couple of pages, making this a good read on tired nights on the riverbanks. From telling about landing a trophy bass (or perhaps the bass landed itself) to reminiscing about a wallet lost down an outhouse hole, to near-death experiences and beautiful sunrises, Howatt brings the realities and beauties of Maine’s most remote locations to life. Each story is captivating, so it may be a good idea to set a timer to keep yourself from reading well after bedtime and missing the fiery sunrises the rivers of Maine have to offer.

There are frightful experiences, both real and imagined. A man thought there were venomous snakes, no species of which lives in Maine, on a Maine riverbank. Another nearly got lost in the woods at night. A young lady had an asthma attack going up a mountain. Howatt himself ended up with a fishing lure in his nose. These stories and more remind us to be careful of what we try and know as much of the possible hazards of an area where we plan to travel.

Group canoes chilling on the shoreline

Jeff Howatt with a big fish he caught

As far as humor, many of Howatt’s stories are chock-full of it. The lure story has a happy ending, and two men are sure to be laughing about their experiences now. There is also one about a coyote skull getting cleaned and a visitor wanting some of the “beef stew” cooking. One young man thought that deer and moose were the same species, even asking at what age does a deer turns into a moose. Yet another tells of a rather unfortunate bicycle incident, but details won’t be given here, as it would spoil the fun.

Howatt says, “I have met many challenges and observed great beauty traveling these areas. These lift my spirit: watching the mist come off a beaver bog on a cool summer morning only to be disturbed by a native brook trout leaping at a flying insect for breakfast, hiking to the top of a mountain in the moonlight to watch the sunrise and being visited by a peregrine falcon.”
A ninth generation Mainer, Jeffrey Howatt teaches math in the same school district that he attended and where his grandmother taught. Like his grandmother before him he was graduated from University of Maine in Farmington. Howatt has paddled most of Central and Northern Maine rivers and hiked most of Maine’s mountains including the Maine section of the Appalachian Trail from inside the New Hampshire border to Mt. Katahdin.

Shauna Holland provides writing, editing and social media assistance to Just Write Books. She lives in Durham, Maine (the youngest of three children). A published author-in-training, she sews role-playing costumes for a hobby and enjoys unpacking various strands of societal systems.

Author

Nancy E. Randolph operates Just Write Books. With the tagline Maine books, Maine authors, Maine stories, Randolph quickly developed a reputation as a publisher of quality Maine books.

An active community member she cochaired the rehabilitation effort of the Androscoggin Swinging Bridge and guided the planning and creation of two riverside parks at each end. Along with two others she founded and serves as a member of the board of Save Our Swinging Bridge.Org to ensure the maintenance of the historic Roebling designed and built bridge connecting Topsham and Brunswick.

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