ABOUT MARNIE
Marnie Reed Crowell, conservationist, natural history writer and poet, was born in Grafton, Massachusetts in 1939. She grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey and majored in biology at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, graduating cum laude. She received the M.S. in Biology from the University of Pennsylvania and married ecologist Dr. Kenneth L. Crowell in 1962.
Marnie has always been a teacher in and out of the classroom. Her career spans high school biology and Latin in Pennsauken New Jersey, a Vermont one room school, in New York state various gifted enrichment programs, Empire State College, St. Lawrence University January Interterm courses, SLU’s Fiction international programs, and volunteering at Ogdensburg Correctional Facility, a medium-security state prison.
Crowell’s first book, Greener Pastures (Funk & Wagnalls 1973), described life on their Canton New York farm as what she called nouveau rurals in the ‘70s back-to-the-land movement. Widely quoted in sources ranging from astrology predictions to Redbook magazine, Greener Pastures was excerpted in Readers’ Digest, anthologized, and used in rural studies courses at St. Lawrence University.
Great Blue , The Odyssey of a Great Blue Heron (Times Books, 1979) described the migration of a great blue heron to the Caribbean but due to an IRS ruling at the time was essentially never distributed and all rights reverted to the author. It has subsequently been reissued by Threehalf Press. Her other books include Flycasting for Everyone, (Gary Lewis with Marnie Reed Crowell & Peter McNair, Stackpole 1997)
Shared Light, Images of Penobscot Bay , and Shore Lines are Threehalf Press poetry collaborations with photographer Ann Flewelling. A Sky of Birds, Downeast images (Threehalf Press, 2011) was produced for the Downeast Chapter of Audubon, with bird photographs by chapter members accompanying Crowell’s bird poems. Beads and String, A Maine island pilgrimage (Threehalf Press 2008) is a collection of Crowell’s poems and essays about the nature preserves of Deer Isle.
For years Marnie Reed Crowell wrote natural history columns for local newspapers. Her many articles appear in newspapers and magazines, such as Redbook, Readers Digest, Natural History, DownEast, and Island Institute’s The Working Waterfront. With her husband she created the Quick Key to Birds of Deer Isle and the Quick Key to Butterflies and Moths. Both benefit the local conservation commission and are on sale at Heritage House of Island Heritage Trust in Sunset. The story of Marnie’s involvement with land trusts is outlined in an interview with Gulf of Times.
Marnie hosted and produced the Satellite Distribution Award-winning North Country Storytelling Festival series for National Public Radio at WSLU-FM. With Racquet Press, the small press venture she formed with two friends while she lived in Canton, New York, Crowell produced North to the St Lawrence, a North Country best seller used in 7th grade social studies classes in the area, and subject of a three-part television series for public television. For St. Lawrence University’s Fiction International writers workshops she gave sessions on establishing independent small presses.
The study of old Iroquois and Wabenaki Indian baskets was for many years an interest of Crowell’s. Baskets donated from the Crowell collection now form significant portions of the holdings of the Akwesasne Cultural Center Museum in Hogansburg, New York, the Maine State Museum in Augusta, the Hudson Museum of the University of Maine at Orono, and the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society.
Artist who practices meditating, Hospice volunteer, and active conservationist, Crowell was called upon to practice what she preached about nature and art and healing after a moonlit ice skating accident in 1999 left her with a Traumatic Brain Injury. Her subsequent recovery is described in Crowell’s novel, The Coast of May (Threehalf Press, 2010). When her recovery was well under way she wrote many poems that she wanted to publish with photographs of the area’s wild places. At about the same time, photographer and clinical psychologist Dr. Ann Flewelling contacted Crowell about the meditation classes Marnie was offering. The two subsequently formed Threehalf Press, dedicated to using new media to produce art that speaks for the environment. Island Meditation (Threehalf Press 2011), originally crafted for the local medical center and adult continuing education program, surveys world-wide meditation techniques including those from Crowell’s trips to China.
Marnie's poems have been featured in Take Heart, a state-wide syndicated poetry column and book of Maine poets of the same name edited by then Poet Laureate of Maine Wes McNair. Subsequent Maine Poet Laureate of Maine Stu Kestenbaum chose a poem of hers to read in his Maine Public Radio series, Poems From Here. A poem of hers was commisioned for the opening of the Penobscot Narrows bridge.
The Crowells have two sons, David, a counselor and artist who for years owned the World Artisan fair trade shop and gallery, and Tom who works for Columbia Land Conservancy and is Founder/owner of Chatham Brewing . Each is now married with two children.
Here is an interview with Marnie:
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/times/winter2008/reed.ph
Marnie has always been a teacher in and out of the classroom. Her career spans high school biology and Latin in Pennsauken New Jersey, a Vermont one room school, in New York state various gifted enrichment programs, Empire State College, St. Lawrence University January Interterm courses, SLU’s Fiction international programs, and volunteering at Ogdensburg Correctional Facility, a medium-security state prison.
Crowell’s first book, Greener Pastures (Funk & Wagnalls 1973), described life on their Canton New York farm as what she called nouveau rurals in the ‘70s back-to-the-land movement. Widely quoted in sources ranging from astrology predictions to Redbook magazine, Greener Pastures was excerpted in Readers’ Digest, anthologized, and used in rural studies courses at St. Lawrence University.
Great Blue , The Odyssey of a Great Blue Heron (Times Books, 1979) described the migration of a great blue heron to the Caribbean but due to an IRS ruling at the time was essentially never distributed and all rights reverted to the author. It has subsequently been reissued by Threehalf Press. Her other books include Flycasting for Everyone, (Gary Lewis with Marnie Reed Crowell & Peter McNair, Stackpole 1997)
Shared Light, Images of Penobscot Bay , and Shore Lines are Threehalf Press poetry collaborations with photographer Ann Flewelling. A Sky of Birds, Downeast images (Threehalf Press, 2011) was produced for the Downeast Chapter of Audubon, with bird photographs by chapter members accompanying Crowell’s bird poems. Beads and String, A Maine island pilgrimage (Threehalf Press 2008) is a collection of Crowell’s poems and essays about the nature preserves of Deer Isle.
For years Marnie Reed Crowell wrote natural history columns for local newspapers. Her many articles appear in newspapers and magazines, such as Redbook, Readers Digest, Natural History, DownEast, and Island Institute’s The Working Waterfront. With her husband she created the Quick Key to Birds of Deer Isle and the Quick Key to Butterflies and Moths. Both benefit the local conservation commission and are on sale at Heritage House of Island Heritage Trust in Sunset. The story of Marnie’s involvement with land trusts is outlined in an interview with Gulf of Times.
Marnie hosted and produced the Satellite Distribution Award-winning North Country Storytelling Festival series for National Public Radio at WSLU-FM. With Racquet Press, the small press venture she formed with two friends while she lived in Canton, New York, Crowell produced North to the St Lawrence, a North Country best seller used in 7th grade social studies classes in the area, and subject of a three-part television series for public television. For St. Lawrence University’s Fiction International writers workshops she gave sessions on establishing independent small presses.
The study of old Iroquois and Wabenaki Indian baskets was for many years an interest of Crowell’s. Baskets donated from the Crowell collection now form significant portions of the holdings of the Akwesasne Cultural Center Museum in Hogansburg, New York, the Maine State Museum in Augusta, the Hudson Museum of the University of Maine at Orono, and the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society.
Artist who practices meditating, Hospice volunteer, and active conservationist, Crowell was called upon to practice what she preached about nature and art and healing after a moonlit ice skating accident in 1999 left her with a Traumatic Brain Injury. Her subsequent recovery is described in Crowell’s novel, The Coast of May (Threehalf Press, 2010). When her recovery was well under way she wrote many poems that she wanted to publish with photographs of the area’s wild places. At about the same time, photographer and clinical psychologist Dr. Ann Flewelling contacted Crowell about the meditation classes Marnie was offering. The two subsequently formed Threehalf Press, dedicated to using new media to produce art that speaks for the environment. Island Meditation (Threehalf Press 2011), originally crafted for the local medical center and adult continuing education program, surveys world-wide meditation techniques including those from Crowell’s trips to China.
Marnie's poems have been featured in Take Heart, a state-wide syndicated poetry column and book of Maine poets of the same name edited by then Poet Laureate of Maine Wes McNair. Subsequent Maine Poet Laureate of Maine Stu Kestenbaum chose a poem of hers to read in his Maine Public Radio series, Poems From Here. A poem of hers was commisioned for the opening of the Penobscot Narrows bridge.
The Crowells have two sons, David, a counselor and artist who for years owned the World Artisan fair trade shop and gallery, and Tom who works for Columbia Land Conservancy and is Founder/owner of Chatham Brewing . Each is now married with two children.
Here is an interview with Marnie:
http://www.gulfofmaine.org/times/winter2008/reed.ph
