Conversations from the Pointed Firs 2/4/22: A Talk with William Carpenter

Host: Peter Neill
Producer: Trisha Badger

Host Peter Neill’s guest this month on Conversations from the Pointed Firs is William Carpenter. Bill is the author of “Silence”, published by Islandport Press in 2021, as well as other works of poetry and fiction. He is the co-founder of the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor where he taught in the English department for 48 years until his retirement in 2019. He and Peter discuss his new book; the traumas and the scars of war; the past and future of human ecology and the importance of better understanding and living within our natural systems; the complexities of social stratification of island communities; inheritance versus native belonging; and the nature of conflict and loss.

#Maine fiction
#Coastal and island living
#War
#Trauma, Stress and Mental Health
#Human Ecology

Guests:
William (Bill) Carpenter grew up in Waterville, Maine, graduated from Dartmouth College and got a PhD at the University of Minnesota, taught at the University of Chicago, and returned to Maine to help found the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor where he taught English for 48 years. He is the recipient of the Pablo Neruda award, the Black Warrior award, and the AWP award in poetry. His previous novels are “A Keeper of Sheep” and “The Wooden Nickel”. He and the writer Donna Gold live in an old coastal inn and spend summers exploring Maine islands aboard their family sloop Northern Light.

About the host:
Peter Neill is founder and director of the World Ocean Observatory, a web-based place of exchange for information and educational services about the health of the ocean. In 1972, he founded Leete’s Island Books, a small publishing house specializing in literary reprints, the essay, photography, the environment, and profiles of indigenous healers and practitioners of complimentary medicine around the world. He holds a profound interest in Maine, its history, its people, its culture, and its contribution to community and quality of life.

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