1 January 2025
Here’s a summary of what Faith Lane Books, LLC did in 2024….
First, we finally published Rural Librarianship: From Surviving to Thriving in January 2024. This is Faith’s non-fiction work written to help bridge an information gap between professional standards (generally created by and for urban libraries or by and for library systems centered around county control) and the realities of rural libraries in New England where funding and governance is much different.
We attended several library conferences to help promote the book: Reading Roundup in Augusta on 1 May; the Maine Library Association conference at Sunday River from 18-21 May; and the New England Library Association Conference in Portland from 19-24 October.
In June we published our first photojournal… Lighthouses of Midcoast Maine & Tales of the Folk who Lived There. This book features photographs of the lighthouses and poetry about the spirits and people who lived nearby.
We were able to preview selected poems from this book at a poetry reading at the Sullivan Maine Community Center, and then introduce the book at The Poets’ Gathering Open Mic on 1 June. Craig’s lighthouse photos were on display through October and November at the Ellsworth Public Library and on 24 October Faith performed a poetry reading from Lighthouses (and previewing an upcoming book about Alaska).
During the summer months, Faith also edited and published a shorter, publicly available family history book called Emery Orson Lane & Rose Mabel Haskell: The Story of the Lane Farm.
We also took photographs and began research for the upcoming photocollage book The Lane Farm Herbal: Edible & Medicinal Plants of Western Maine.
We were delighted that our health allowed us to travel more in 2024. We viewed the total solar eclipse on 8 April from Eustis, Maine. What a delightful day! The communal awe we shared in that event inspired several poems that will appear in future books.
Our biggest trip was to and in the stunning state of Alaska, from 28 August to 13 September. Our photojournal is scheduled to be published this month! That was a bucket list trip and it was certainly inspiring.
Finally, North Woods at Night: Literary Reflections on Maine’s Largest Forest was released 1 December. This is an anthology, published and available through 12 Willows Press, which includes two of Faith’s poems: Fireflies and Midnight, Daicey Pond.
What will we focus on in 2025?
Certainly, we plan to stay busy this year!
We have two or three new books in the works as mentioned above… but also a reboot of the poetry chapbooks Zen(ish) and Toxic & Tonic. We are also compiling a new poetry chapbook: An American Druid Speaks.
And we will definitely be leaning into creating more audio/visual content on our YouTube Channel and our new Substack page… as well as on our Faith Lane Books, LLC blog.
We thank you for your continued support of our adventures and hope you have a year filled with love, peace, and discovery.