“When I came home, there was a package outside my door, about the size of a jewelry box, wrapped in plain brown paper. I wasn’t expecting...

That crazy crush of humanity I witnessed was the twilight of civilization. In the morally bankrupt city of Medes, the seething pack of...

A crowd had gathered in the high school gymnasium on a hot Saturday in early June. The doors were propped open to the sticky air. Many...

Mr. Chairman, Senator Reiley, distinguished members of the committee. Thank you for your invitation. I am Dr. Corbin Kasselton,...

Right after college, I briefly held a paid internship with a well-connected “mobile think tank.” We were sort of like a M.A.S.H. unit for...

More than anything else, as he neared the end of his life, with all his acquired wealth, Thaddeus Wolffe desired something invaluable,...

Early one spring, Stel, a college sophomore, stood on the covered porch of her two-story brick dormitory. Hunter, her ex-boyfriend, only...

On June 27, 1978 a busload of cloistered nuns, Sisters of the Pious Promise, were on their way home from an annual weeklong retreat to a...

I am a creature of routine; structure defines me. I am neither proud nor embarrassed, though I am aware of an underlying vulnerability in...

When I was a teen in rural Maine, there weren’t many convenient ways to earn spending money. But everything entertainment-related still...

We owned a few rustic cabins on Burnt Meadow Pond, “southwestern Maine tropical,” prime getaway country. The “noisy” season was late...

Scavengers, maximum desperation, spiritual hemorrhaging? We got by, with basic food and hard work, blisters and pants with holes in the...

A few years back, when my mother was only recently widowed, my wife Rebecca and I were her nearest family, about a half-mile away, and...

Mother’s Day. The ground was finally starting to dry out. Longfellow Holcom drove his little John Deere tractor through the woods and up...

I was hiding deep in an abandoned mineral mine when the intercontinental bombs began dropping. I recalled last visiting while on a junior...

We've all been there: it's like a rainy that never ends, only I'm too young to drive and Dad has the car. I can't have friends over, but...

Mud season. In Maine that’s what we call the time of year after winter and before summer. The thaw and rain arrive together, like a...

In the sunny city park across the street, a tan, short-haired, three-legged mutt happily and energetically chased and retrieved a Frisbee...