University of Southern Maine

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can."

Herman Melville-Moby Dick

The coast of Maine is both metaphor and substance. Here the absolute meets the plastic, the known meets the unknown. Water and land are locked in a marriage of inconvenience. The jagged rocks are worn smooth; the sinuous waves are shattered.

Each July the Stonecoast Writers’ Conference meets at the Stone House, a waterfront estate designed by John Calvin Stevens. The Colonial Revival style building is located in an isolated area off of Wolfe’s Neck on Casco Bay. The property is surrounded by heather gardens and pastureland. All the classrooms have water views. The Stone House was donated to the University of Southern Maine by Mrs. Eleanor Houston Smith.