Backyard Maine

Edgar Allen Beem examines, muses about, scoffs at, reveals, and celebrates everyday life in Maine, from high school sports to high-priced homes, aging dogs to aging cars, politics to religion, underwear to naps, berry-picking to clam festivals, and much, much more. Most of these short, savvy essays have appeared in The Forecaster, in Ed’s “Universal Notebook” column (named for the spiral-bound reporter’s notebooks that he buys two dozen at a time), or in the Maine Times, where he was a staff writer for a number of years. He started reporting when he was a sophomore at Westbrook High, writing for the Westbrook American, and aside from a stint as a librarian at the Portland Public Library after college, he’s been “scribbling for a living” in Maine for his working life. Opinionated, insightful, humorous, and sometimes controversial, Ed Beem enjoys his role as a local observer, and these essays will resonate with anyone tuned in to day-to-day life in backyard Maine.

Edgar Allen Beem is a freelance writer who lives in Yarmouth, Maine. Former art critic for Maine Times, he has written about art and architecture in Maine for twenty-five years. He is a frequent contributor to Down East, Yankee, and Photo District News, and he has written for the Boston Globe Magazine, ArtNews, Design New England, Maine Boats & Harbors, Conde Nast's Traveler, and Teacher. He is the author of Maine Art Now and Maine: The Spirit of America, and he writes a weekly opinion column entitled “The Universal Notebook” for The Forecaster, a Greater Portland weekly newspaper where most of the essays in Backyard Maine originally appeared.