May Sarton was a prolific writer whose body of work includes 19 novels and 17 books of poetry. Her most popular and enduring writing, however, is found in her journals and memoirs, which include “Plant Dreaming Deep,” “Journal of a Solitude,” and “The House by the Sea.” The latter, written after Sarton moved from New Hampshire to the coast of Maine in 1973, is a profoundly personal account of solitude, nature, and the creative process. In it, Sarton compares talent to a plant, writing that “it may simply wither if it is not given enough food, sun, tender care. And to give it those things means working at it every day.”