We feature the Ten Most Intriguing People in Maine in this issue, a reader
favorite for more than three decades. Hey, and by the way, our city is no slouch when it comes to being intriguing.

Dazzlers RE: our Magnetic Metropole

Stephen King was born in the Maine Eye and Ear Infirmary on Congress Street. He is the most popular contemporary fiction writer in America today, according to a YouGovAmerica survey that marvels at the depth of his appeal and considers it with the following filters: He’s No. 1 with Millennials, No. 1 with Gen X, No. 1 with Baby Boomers, No. 1 with women, No. 1 with men. A thousand years from now, people will know King springs from Portland. Which probably really scares him.

Anna Kendrick and Victoria Rowell were born here. Liv Tyler grew up here. Breakthrough Portland novelist Ann S. Stephens invented the dime novel.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born here when Portland was still part of Massachusetts. The Bearded One’s translation of Dante’s Inferno echoes through eternity: “Midway upon the journey of our life/ I found myself within a forest dark,/For the straightforward pathway had been lost.”

Portland Head Light hypnotizes the globe. Everything else is just a lighthouse. It lights the way to the city Redfin just named No. 1 of the “Top 10 Small Towns in America Worth Moving To Today”—with a photo of You Know Who. Though it’s not actually in Portland, even the most well-intentioned revisionist wouldn’t dare to suggest calling it Cape Elizabeth Light.

We champion the extraordinary and the misunderstood. We are daring. Portlander N. P. Willis was the first to publish Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”

Instagram precursor postcards were invented here. Suddenly we could share our travels around the world with our loved ones with a photo on a 4 x 6 card.

We have at least five inhabited urban islands within our city limits. Intriguing geography.

Before the North Atlantic Fleet sailed off to win World War II, it refueled in Portland Harbor (anchoring in Long Island Sound).

We’re the lobster capital of the universe. Because of this we walk the streets with an air of cosmic cool.

Funny, Tony-winning Andrea Martin keeps the world in stitches.

We’re “the closest transatlantic U. S. port to Europe.” *

Two words: Italian Sandwich.

Two catchphrases we invented: “Wicked” and “Just sayin’.”