Because your surgeons are the global leaders

Heather Marcus

A class at Maine Media Workshops last summer put Yankee ’s veteran photo editor in a very different position: behind the lens [“A Sense of Place,” p. 114]. After years of helping to select and showcase work by top New England photographers, “I discovered that I really did have my own visual voice, and that was very empowering,” says Marcus, who lives in New Hampshire with daughters Ella and Lucy.

Stephen Sheffield

Dividing his time among fine-art photography, commissions, and teaching at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, Sheffield says the chance to visually explore New England [“The Most Famous Fish Shack in the World,” p. 20] was a welcome break from the “grind.” He brought along his son, Milo: “a total trouper, getting up with me at 5 a.m. to travel and spend the day exploring and taking photos.”

Rebecca Tuttle

Born into the 11th generation at America’s oldest family farm, in Dover, New Hampshire, Tuttle tried for years to find a way to tell the farm’s story. Then she took a memoir class with novelist Joyce Maynard, a fellow New Hampshire native who had actually grown up near the Tuttle Farm. “She knew about our famous corn, and proposed I start there,” Tuttle recalls. “Thus was born ‘Corn Season’” [p. 110].

Geoffrey Douglas

A veteran Yankee contributor, Douglas has written about everything from the 1999 Worcester fire to ethical dilemmas in cutting-edge medicine (“A Question of Life and Death,” which was a 2002 National Magazine Awards finalist). But his story in this issue [“Searching for Alexander,” p. 122] “is easily the most personal” of them all, says Douglas, who is also the author of four nonfiction books.

Below the Surface

In “The Many Worlds of Winnipesaukee” [May/June], the photo of the vintage speedboat gets a 10. The text, however, ignores the Great Spirit weeping in despair. Winnipesaukee and its shoreline are victims of avarice, bloated egos, ostentation, and ignorance…. Sounds of songbirds and the slap of a fish jumping are lost in the racket of seaplanes, helicopters, and buzzy little Jet Skis. The shorefront forests have been replaced by chemical green lawns that bleed algae-nourishing nitrogen into the water. Architecturally abhorrent condos and McMansions litter this artificial landscape.

I am thankful that my most enduring experiences are different. I saw my father assisting my mother, in her “New Look” frock and high heels, into the cockpit of our prewar inboard before they drove off into the twilight to dance at the Weirs Pavilion to Benny Goodman or the Glenn Miller Band. And I watched the loons dance as the earlymorning mist rose from the water in the narrow channel around Hermit Island.

Ruth Smith Wilton, New Hampshire

Editors’ note: Though our article focused on Winnipesaukee as a summer travel destination, your point about the environmental challenges it faces is especially timely—see “Luke and the Lake,” p. 104.

Despite having crisscrossed New England for ’s home editor found the Farm Coast [“A Hidden Beauty,” p. 90] to be a revelation: “Beautiful beaches, atmospheric farm stands, sunlit fields running down to the water ... it’s like a postcard of favorite things.” She blogs about her travels—and the adventures of her boisterous Jack Russell terrier, Rudy—at anniegraves.com.

Best known to readers by his initials, D.A.W., Waters has been writing and illustrating poems for Yankee for more than 20 years. He’s also a longtime resident of Martha’s Vineyard, where he lives with husband Hal and their three Tonkinese cats (Jasper, Simon, and Toby). And since his home is on an island surrounded by beaches, Waters notes, “I didn’t have to look far for inspiration for my latest illustration!” [p. 11]

Waiting for Weekends

As a Connecticut expat, I’ve lived vicariously through Yankee for years, especially in the photographs. I’m stuck in a landlocked state with no trees to speak of, no ocean, and no mountains. While the Great Plains prairies have their own beauty, it’s no New England, I promise.

Here’s my issue, though: It’s not nice to tease readers like me with Weekends with Yankee , which not all public TV stations carry. Every time I open my new issue—which, incidentally, I set aside a whole afternoon