Mystery at sea

By Jan Gardner  |  July 22, 2007

Fishing captain and author Linda Greenlaw is on a 45-city book tour to promote her first mystery, "Slipknot" (Hyperion) , in which Jane Bunker , a marine insurance investigator , finds a body washed ashore in Maine. Writing fiction, says Greenlaw, is much harder than fishing, but she's not letting go of either. While she's on the road, her father is taking care of her lobster traps back in Maine.

Greenlaw came to fame after her respected career as a swordboat captain was highlighted in "The Perfect Storm," by Sebastian Junger, and the book's film adaptation. Fans want to know about her mother, with whom she wrote a cookbook (she's doing well), and if Greenlaw has a boyfriend (she does). "I hate to call him my boyfriend, though. We're both so old," says Greenlaw, 46. "I call him my guyfriend."

For years, writers and illustrators of children's books have settled in Northampton, Amherst, and the surrounding hill towns, drawn to the vibrant arts scene and the company of like-minded folks. Few have been as productive as Jane Yolen , who has written more than 290 books.

The Hatfield resident's newest offering is "How Do Dinosaurs Go to School?" (Scholastic), illustrated by Mark Teague. With sales of 3 million copies, the dinosaur series is Yolen's most popular. One grateful mother wrote Yolen that reading "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?" helped her autistic son sleep through the night without her or her husband at his side.

Yolen, 68, sold her first children's book at age 22. In addition to writing for children and young adults, she has written science fiction and fantasy for adults. Recently, she finished her first graphic novel, "Foiled," about a high school girl whose passion is fencing. The girl loses her fencing foil on her first date -- as Yolen once did -- and then the magic begins.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) celebrated America in the poems he wrote, among them "Paul Revere's Ride." Now the Longfellow National Historic Site, 105 Brattle St., Cambridge, is celebrating the bicentennial of the poet's birth with a series of readings on the lawn Sundays at 4. Today's reading will feature poems by Longfellow and other American icons. Pulitzer Prize winner Galway Kinnell is the guest poet on Aug. 5. The Aug. 19 session features David Barber, poetry editor of The Atlantic, of which Longfellow was a founding member. Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, and John Barr, president of the Poetry Foundation, will pay tribute to Longfellow's legacy at 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26 at First Parish Church, 3 Church St., Cambridge.

"The Savoir," by Eugene Drucker (Simon & Schuster)

"Interventions," by Noam Chomsky (City Lights)

"Someone to Love," by Jude Deveraux (Atria)

Karen Frank of Northshire Bookstore, in Manchester Center, Vt. , recommends "On Kingdom Mountain," by Howard Frank Mosher (Houghton Mifflin) : "A wonderful and quirky novel set in northern Vermont in 1930 [and] featuring a fascinating 50-year-old woman. It is packed with entertaining personages and generations of weird behavior."

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.