Birding in Maine

Kristen Lindquist attended Middlebury College in Vermont and received her MFA in poetry from the University of Oregon. She worked many summers at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Her poetry and other writings have appeared in such venues as Down East, Maine Times, Bangor Metro, Northern Sky News, and Bangor Daily News, as well as various literary/haiku journals and anthologies. Her publications include the chapbook Invocation to the Birds (Oyster River Press, 2001),  Transportation (Megunticook Press, 2011), which was a finalist for a Maine Literary Award, and Tourists in the Known World: New & Selected Poems (Megunticook Press, 2017).

Her work has received various awards, including a Pushcart Prize nomination and a Maine Press Association award (third place) for outdoor writing. Garrison Keillor read three of her poems on National Public Radio’s The Writer’s Almanac. Maine State Poet Laureate Stu Kestenbaum has read two of her poems on Maine Public Radio’s Poems from Here.

She has written a natural history column for the local papers for many years (currently for Pen Bay Pilot; read a recent column here) and since 2009 has maintained a daily haiku blog, Book of Days. In addition to writing, she also teaches on occasion, most recently for the local adult ed program (natural history; Maine poetry; haiku) and has also led haiku workshops around the state.

An avid birder since childhood, Kristen served as the first female member of the Maine Bird Records Committee. She has guided bird outings around Maine for various organizations and for the Acadia Birding Festival. In 2019 she was the naturalist for the Coastal Maine Hiking trip offered by Distant Journeys.

She lives in her hometown of Camden, Maine, with her husband, novelist Paul Doiron