Jean Marie Ivey

Jean Marie Ivey is a writer, painter, and woman of faith living in Ellsworth, Maine. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1938, she moved to Maine in 1966 and has called it home ever since. She is the author of eleven books spanning fifty years. Her first, Maine Paradise, was co-authored with photographer Russell D. Butcher and published by Viking Press in 1972. Her photographs from that book were featured on national television during the centennial celebration of Robert Frost's birth. She also co-authored and illustrated Facts and Fancy: Acadia National Park, Mount Desert Island.

Her published works include the historical novels Cassie's Dream and The Selkie in Seal Harbor, illustrated throughout with her own paintings. The Vine and the Cross is a historical novel set in fourth century Georgia, inspired by her experience singing with the Surry Opera Company on a Cold War peace tour to the Soviet Republic of Georgia in 1987. Road to Bluebeard's Castle is her memoir of survival, faith, and freedom, published by Page Publishing in 2025. Maine Wonderland the Way It Was, co-authored with her daughter Donna, celebrates the history of Acadia National Park and preserves the memory of the historic Jordan Pond House.

Two new anthologies — The Promise — In Uncertain Times and Crazy Quilt — have been accepted for publication. A third anthology, Music Alone Shall Live, is currently in production.

Jean Marie spent thirty three years as a research technologist at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. She founded J.A.C.K., Justice for Autism With Community and Kindness. A longtime member of the United Church of Christ, she has worshiped across many traditions over a lifetime and found God in all of them.

She paints every day. She writes every day. She is still asking the question she first asked at age six — Is this all there is?