About

“Our admiration of the antique is not
admiration of the old, but of the natural.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Welcome to Figments & Frames.

I’m a writer based in Maine and New Jersey, and this is where I document my growing antique book collection.

You’ll find my books cover a range of similar subjects, including life in frontier America, Native American interactions, early American and indigenous folklore, and all sorts of literature on food, from hunting and gathering to farming innovations and cookbooks. I also can’t resist buying old illustrated children’s books and literary classics—when I can find them.

My upcoming novel is an exploration of many of these subjects, telling the story of a young woman who inherits her family’s farm in rural New Jersey. Besides typical duties like the weekly farmer’s market and local CSA program, she continues her family’s longstanding tradition of growing and selling medicinal and psychedelic plants in an underground market. She discovers folklore and fantasy play a part in the farm’s history, and if she’s not careful, she might fall down the rabbit hole.

If that’s a book you’d like to read, then I think you will enjoy following Figments & Frames. 

– Joanna Buffum