J.P. Devine, a former New York and Hollywood actor, painter and dancer, who worked with Bob Newhart, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Carson, Ricardo Montalban, and Zero Mostel, gave up those lucrative art forms and took a vow of poverty to become a freelance writer. All because a tarot card reader in Hong Kong in 1953 told him he would become famous in “letters” late in life. Author and friend Ray Bradbury told him at age 37, that that was late enough. Go forth.
Jeremiah Patrick Devine, the descendant of four Irish immigrants is the husband of Katherine Joly Devine, father of two daughters, Jillana and Dawn, and an Old English sheep dog, Jack, who may or may not be alive when he gets the Pulitzer.
J.P.’s book, “Will Write For Food – True Stories, Half Truths, and 3 Lies”, is a collection of J.P.’s columns and features many memories of his days in the glittery acting business, where he knew many of our most famous and popular actors and actresses. He has plans to publish his second book this fall, “Everybody Else Is Dead,” a memoir written as a movie.
Amy Calder, journalist for the Morning Sentinel, covers Waterville, including city government, and writes a column, “Reporting Aside,” which appears Mondays in both the Sentinel and Kennebec Journal.
Calder, who lives in Waterville, has worked at the newspaper 29 years, including a stint as bureau chief for the Somerset County Bureau in Skowhegan, and has covered a variety of beats.
A Skowhegan native (who is proud to say she was born in Waterville), she holds a bachelors in English from University of Hartford and completed post-graduate work in the School of Education at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She holds more than a dozen awards from the Maine Press Association and New England Associated Press News Executives Association.
Calder lives in Waterville with her husband, Philip Norvish, a retired Sentinel reporter and editor.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
