Amy Calder is an award-winning newspaper reporter and columnist, covering city government and everything from murders and car crashes to fires and drug busts. Her 34-year career started at the Waterville Sentinel bureau in Skowhegan, where she served as bureau chief for several years and chased stories from Jackman to Fairfield and Farmington to Newport. Since 2009, Calder has written a weekly human interest column, "Reporting Aside," which appears in both the Sentinel and the Kennebec Journal. Comfort is an Old Barn is a curated collection of those columns, which include sketches of the colorful characters, quirky animals she has encountered, and special moments, as well as personal stories that make living in Maine special.