Maine authors have crafted these 28 stories and essays to accompany fine art photography in this color standard edition of their choices of the 22 works from the September 2019 exhibit at Fukurou gallery, illustrated herein.

From the preface: Art critique is one thing, while a writer's view may be another. And the reflections of an innocent bystander another yet. In the sound of the Japanese word "Fukurou," I somewhere hear an owl. Folks grown up in the West might think of the Greek goddess Athena and her associations, but the owl has many multicultural things to say, including about art. Maine, coastal and inland, is historically connected with worldwide trade and cultural exchange. From Melville's Mainer out of the forest showing up on a South Pacific island in Typee to the scenes in Neil Rolde's Maine in the World, an owl may not be so out of place as a moose. Which is as much to say, Polar Bear & Company, an imprint of the Solon Center for Research and Publishing, has requested eight hundred words or less from any self-described Mainer on any of the works currently exhibited at gallery Fukurou, recently established at 20 Main Street, Rockland.

We did not know what to expect, but the response of eighty-eight contributions was larger than that, and we are immensely thankful to all contestants; I prefer the term "contributors" with such creativity, especially for a nonprofit, even though we had to be publishers and be selective, hopefully forgiven. A major consideration was that we look for fine writing inspired by as many of the individual works exhibited as possible. Some of the essays and stories are wonderfully distant from the author's chosen artwork hanging in the gallery, as you will see. So raw competition for literary quality was moderated by inclusion of art, which seems appropriate, as we inaugurate this series of annual publications and their book-signing events at the gallery. For information on the Solon Center and related projects, please visit SolonCenter.org, ProtectingAmerica.net, and welcome to Fukurou gallery --Paul Cornell du Houx, ED