Peter Bollen, born in Lynn, Massachusetts, and raised there, has lived in Bridgton, Maine, since 2003.
He served in the U.S. Navy from 1968 to '70 and attended North Shore Community College in Beverly, MA. He was editor of the Lynnfield Beacon, a trade labor journal, and editor of the award-winning Labor journal, Northeast News Service, from 1989 to '96. Bollen's many essays and letters have appeared in newspapers and journals, including the Salem Evening News, the Boston Herald, the Federal Times, North Shore Sunday, the Daily Item, Lake Living magazine, and the Bridgton News.
Bollen initiated a lawsuit-eventually joined by more than a dozen plaintiffs-against the Justice Department to overturn a prohibition on compensation for freelance writing and speaking for all federal employees; the U.S. Supreme Court agreed and overturned the ban in 1995. He contributed a biography of the singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie to the Postmaster General in 1980, which helped result in a commemorative postage stamp of Guthrie as part of the Folk Musicians series.
Also by Peter Bollen: "Dear Bureaucrat"; I Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident, collected essays; and the short story, "Assignment: The Torch."