Lessons from the Sea

Of the speakers that I heard this afternoon the one that impressed me the most was the one that was not SirsiDynix related. Each year Sirsi has a featured author speaker. This year it was Linda Greenlaw. A fisherman at heart she has since become a writer and "adventure" speaker. She was part of the book The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger. She told about her rise from cook to deck hand to captain; perhaps the only female ever to captain a swordfishing boat.

When she wrote her first book, called The Hungry Ocean, she had to enter the world of New York publishing which was a culture shock to her. Her publicist asked what type of makeup she used and she replied with "Chapstick."

She is a no-nonsense person who loves fishing, her home town of Isle Au Haut (off the coast of Maine) and her family. She shared her lessons of life that she learned at sea but could be applied to anyone. Some of those lessons are: education is never wasted, opportunity knocks - but it is up to you to open the door, mutual respect, work hard and have your own measure of success. Her best advice came from her mother: You can be anything you want to be. Greenlaw said that her mother probably didn't have a life of lobster fishing in mind for her daughter, but she is happy getting familiar with the new careers of writer and speaker.

She also has written The Lobster Chronicles. After the talk she signed copies of her book.