BRUNSWICK — Alice Arlen, biographer of Maine author Louise Dickinson Rich, will speak on Tuesday, June 11, about Rich’s life and the influence of her early writing on the Maine tourist industry during the sporting camp era. Writing initially for magazines, Rich turned to books and in 1942, after three years of writing, she published “We Took to the Woods.”

Rich went on to publish 24 books and become an iconic Mainer who did much to publicize both the state and the beauty of its rural living. This is also ironic since she was born in Massachusetts and returned to Massachusetts when her husband died in 1945.

Dickinson met her future husband, Ralph Rich, on a canoe trip to western Maine at age 31. Shortly after marrying, the pair moved to the banks of the Rapid River in Rangeley to escape city life and it was from there that Rich experienced the self-reliant Maine life she later chronicled. Their home was inaccessible by road and had no running water.

Rich gave up her city profession to live there. She had been a high school English teacher. Among Rich’s other publications are “My Neck of the Woods,” “State O’ Maine,” and a series of outdoor adventure books for teens.

Biographer Alice Arlen, a registered Maine guide, became fascinated with Rich while researching and writing books on the early history of Maine sporting camps. Finishing her sporting camp books, she turned her full writing attention on Louise Dickinson Rich.

Searching out the best original source material she could find, much of it from Rich’s own children, it all came together in a biography published in 2001, titled “She Took to the Woods.” The book includes many of Rich’s original writings.

Arlen will bring to life author Louise Dickinson Rich, especially her years in Maine, by telling stories about her early and later years as a young girl, mother, woodswoman and writer.

Join Arlen at the Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant S. for a potluck dinner at 6 p.m. followed by her talk at 7 p.m. Bring a potluck item to share and your own dinnerware. Drinks will be available. Or, simply come for the talk at 7 p.m. Both potluck and talk are free and open to the public. For more information, email [email protected].

Go and do

Who: The Appalachian Mountain Club, Maine Chapter

What: Biographer Alice Arlen on Louise Dickinson Rich, author of “We Took to the Woods”

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 11

Where: Curtis Memorial Library, 23 Pleasant St, Brunswick