Elizabeth Gilbert: On Maine
The author of the bestselling Eat, Pray, Love learned an early lesson in writing — and life — on Matinicus.
Photograph by Deborah Lopez
Fans of Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the enormously popular memoir, Eat, Pray, Love, might not know that she set her first and (so far) only novel in Maine. Stern Men, published in 2001, is the story of the intense rivalry between lobstering families on two fictional islands. This month, The Telling Room, a nonprofit writing program in Portland dedicated to young storytellers between the ages of eight and eighteen, is bringing Gilbert back to Maine for the first time since Stern Men was published. She’ll be doing a benefit reading at Portland’s Merrill Auditorium and sharing some of the things she’s learned about writing — and life — since she first ventured out to Matinicus Island a decade ago in search of a story. [For the rest of this story, see the September 2008 issue of Down East.]
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