Polar Bear &
Company
Independent literary publishing established in 1998 with a primary focus on place. Further, related categories of interest include histories, things that inspire (what might be called hope), and the imagination.
Our Books
Fiction, myth, time travel, utopias and dystopias, hybrid beasts and walking violins, spaces just over the horizon; mirror worlds, worlds in worlds; trees of grafted truths, a fanciful warping of facts to create something new, that which has no physical bounds, a place for adult children and childlike adults.
Poetry, philosophy, reflections, words to court epiphany; morsels to evoke original thought; unusual intersections; underdogs who overcome; guides for living; words to turn to in a tough spot; thoughts to chew on; avenues of escape; idea-making; lightning in the blood.
(Coming Soon) A page with all our books, a place to browse and scroll with an open mind and a little time on your hands, a visual feast.
History, archives, gaps in the record, voices that echo through time, memoirs of those who have passed, public memory, loss, traces, accumulated moments that create the present, the present spun backward, lessons, all that has gone before and will likely return in another form.
Location, landscape, Maine, and more, houses, homes, a mountain, a sea, a complicated and dynamic web of relationships within a geography, a set of circumstances to which you belong, the local and the specific, the internal world turned external, puddles, forests, the early morning dew.
Books in the works
Mr. Tiggywiggle
by Sherry Van Wickle Walrath,
A contemporary story book with a traditional feel, Mr. Tiggywiggle re-imagines Independence Day to include diverse perspectives. A community of squabbling animals find ways to get along with humor, wit and a whole lot of fun.
Into the Civil War with the 3rd Maine Infantry Regiment: From the Kennebec to the Virginia Peninsula
by David S. Cook.
The mustering in the Kennebec Valley and the developing experience of war.
Clipper Goes for a Walk
by Anita Haviland.
Clipper the Deer Isle puppy goes for a walk on the beach and encounters a violent change in the weather.
Cynicism, Rapture, and Pure Emotional Dichotomy: the Poetry of Relationships
by Danielle Annis..
Poetry and art .
The Quest to Save the Seasons
by Ramona du Houx.
Five young adults adventure through different cultures in conflict and powers of the natural world to realign the seasons and the planet.
The Bricha
by Neil Rolde.
To be completed and published posthumously, this important insight into the multicultural background of Israel.
O What a Soul!
The journal of Margaret Brinton.
Highlights the creative life of Sally Duchsten, wife of the New Left intellectual Paul Goodman.
Thomas Votary, Medieval Oxford Coroner: The King’s Gold Double Leopards
by Richard Davies.
Thomas arrives in Oxford in the fourteenth century to find his way in life and becomes part of the community by uncovering the chain of criminality connected to the changing social pressures of the Hundred Years War, affecting all classes of society.
Freedom Fighter
by Esther Pasztory.
The autobiographical insight of a young Hungarian girl who escapes the Communists, grows up caught between cultures, to become a professor and author renowned for her groundbreaking and liberating books on pre-Columbian art and cross-cultural studies.
Soto’s Song
by David Kroner.
The poetic and human journey of an incarnation of the forest who finds his way to the edge of human society and back to nature again.
Return to Omaha Beach: the Speeches and Interviews of Charles Norman Shay.
Elder Charles Shay’s sequel to Project Omaha Beach: the Life and Military Service of a Penobscot Indian Elder.
Clipper Goes for a Walk
by Anita Haviland.
Our favorite island puppy is up to hijinks again as he gets caught up in a weather adventure.
A little back story
We were founded in 1998, quite literally in a cabin in the woods next to a little brook that feeds into the Kennebec River in Maine. Our first prototypes came before the internet era, before digital printing. Some of our early manuscripts were typed on a typewriter. Even though we’ve enthusiastically embraced new technologies, we operate with the same level of attention to detail that it takes to type out a manuscript letter by letter and bind it by hand. We see publishing as a craft.
We are not interested in standard categories and distinctions. We are drawn to work that explores the edges and isn’t afraid of the shadows, that glows in the dark, has sharp claws and occasionally sleeps in sunbeams. We love genre-bending–academics who break out into fiction, imagination embraced in essay-writing. We are not always interested in what is easy and popular, though we do love a good story. We believe that words can emancipate the world.
Check out our blog
Bear Tracks (under construction)
- Bear TracksThis is just a test post.
- HelloThis is where we’ll post updates on our latest books, author news, events, readings, tidbits, interviews, and press coverage. More soon.
