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Surry’s Rural Nature Nourishes Writer
Surry writer Susan
Hand Shetterly has always wanted to be from Maine.
She grew up in New
York and Connecticut
and has lived in Surry about 20 years, after living 10 years in
Gouldsboro. She feels like she “grew up” in Maine because although
she had her college education elsewhere, “this is where I learned to
live. My whole world and whole sensibility [are] rural and
small-town
Maine.”
Shetterly has a
bachelor’s degree in Spanish literature, a master’s in education,
and a master’s of fine arts in writing. During her early years in
Maine, she worked as a contributing writer for Maine Times, doing
interviews and writing about places all over the state, mostly on
environmental subjects. She called this “the luckiest job in the
world for someone who isn’t from here—I came to love my state.”
Shetterly has
written a number of children’s books, the most recent, “Shelterwood,”
published by Tilbury House in Gardiner, she describes as being about
“using the woods well.” She has also written a book of essays, and
is currently working on a new manuscript “that relates to place.”
Wildlife and nature
are frequent subjects for Shetterly’s writing. Although she is not
a biologist, she has “learned from paying attention” about wildlife
and nature.
The wildlife
biologists she has interviewed are “acute observers,” which she said
writers need to be as well.
Her environmental
concern extends to her interest in preserving land in the area “for
habitat” and from development. She is on the board of the Blue
Hill Heritage Trust and a member of the Friends of Morgan Bay, which
formed the Carter Nature Preserve on Morgan Bay.
In her strong sense
of “engagement to place,” Shetterly feels about Maine the way Edward
Abbey, author of “Desert Solitaire,” feels about Utah: “This is the
most beautiful place on earth.”
“I love the way the
people, land, and weather interact here,” Shetterly said. “It’s what
I write about, it always starts here, or [it comes] back here.”
Shetterly sees a
crucial link between where people are from and who they are, and
believes that those who really feel themselves to be from a certain
place are both most nourished by that place and most likely to
protect it. |
