Rivers of Ink: Literary Reflections on the Penobscot

Finalist — Maine Literary Awards 2024

Maine's Penobscot River has shaped the land, the people, and the stories of an entire region for thousands of years. Rivers of Ink: Literary Reflections on the Penobscot gathers 61 Maine writers—poets, essayists, and fiction writers—to trace that legacy through essays, fiction, and poetry that move from the river's Indigenous origins to its industrial past to its uncertain environmental future.

With an introduction by Sherri Mitchell Weh'na Ha'mu Kwasset—attorney, activist, and author from the Penobscot Nation—this anthology honors both the river and the communities it sustains. The collection spans geological time, personal memory, and cultural reckoning, offering a portrait of a waterway that is as contested as it is beloved.

$1 from every sale supports Friends of Katahdin Woods & Waters and their "A Monumental Welcome" campaign, funding a new visitor station and Wabanaki-directed projects.

"Brimming with voices as diverse as the river's currents and the land through which it flows, Rivers of Ink is a significant addition to the literature of the Penobscot." —Kristen Britain, New York Times bestselling author

"The writers in Rivers of Ink speak to us about the power of place, how one river connects us all." —Stuart Kestenbaum, former poet laureate of Maine

Book 1 of the Literary Reflections On series.