Lew Dietz (22 May 1906 – 27 April 1997)[1] was an American writer, much of whose work centered on his native Maine.
Dietz was born in Pittsburgh and graduated from New York University, but he lived much of his life in and near Rockport, Maine.
Perhaps his best known work (with Harry Goodridge) was A Seal Called Andre,[3] based on the true story of an orphaned baby seal that learned to perform tricks and became a popular tourist attraction in Rockport.
An Informal History of the Camden-Rockport Region (1947), The Allagash, (1968, 1978, 2001), originally published as part of the Rivers of America Series); Touch of Wildness A Maine Woods Journal (1970); Pines for the King's Navy, (1955), concerning the struggle among settlers, Indians, and the British king for Maine's timber, and Full Fathom Five (1958), illustrated by his wife, the artist Denny Winter.
Reissued in 1998, the book combines Dietz's words with Kosti Ruohomaa's (1914–1961) black and white photographs of ordinary rural and fishing industry Mainers.