On July 18, Ella Kotsen discussed her research and inspiration for her 2024 Chebacco article Ruth Moore’s Microcosm: Narratives that Deconstruct Notions of Inside and Outside. The program was a collaboration between the Northeast Harbor Library and the MDI Historical Society.

Gott’s Island/Tremont author Ruth Moore wrote narratives that told local working-class stories while also exploring the unique perspective offered by being “from away.” She challenged the binary thinking that there is only an inside and an outside when it comes to close-knit rural communities by creating heroic protagonists who live on the inside yet are oftentimes “outsiders” to their neighbors. Moore, who left the island for high school and then Maine to pursue her career, was unafraid to use her unique perspective to tell the hard, ugly truths about small towns, yet she was invested in showing that radical acceptance can happen even in remote, insular communities. Her stories of Maine island people and events, while surrounded by blue water, green firs, and granite cliffs, were universal-- a “microcosm of anywhere else.”

Ella graduated from Bryn Mawr College with a degree in Literatures in English in May of 2023. She is currently a board member of the Tremont Historical Society where she served as an intern for two years prior.