The sun is out in Stehekin – big news this gray winter! – and the pace of life is beginning to pick up for Laurie and me. Laurie’s begun early season pruning in the apple orchard, and I’ve got two memoir classes going at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, as well as a daily stint with the fine young writers at the Stehekin School. This year, they each picked a town on the U.S. map blindfolded and wrote historical fiction set in that town. So I’ve been reading some very cool stories about places as diverse as Atlanta, Georgia, Council Bluffs, Iowa and Silver City, New Mexico.
Last weekend, I also had the chance to read from my new memoir Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus for about twenty five of my Stehekin neighbors at an annual event sponsored by Arts and Humanities of Stehekin. It was a much-needed confidence boost for me to have such a supportive and enthusiastic crowd show up. The icing on the cake, for all of us, was seeing tiny new snow flakes fall in the headlights as we crept back home along the lakeshore.
In writing news, the new anthology Wild Moments: Adventures with Animals of the North (University of Alaska Press) includes an essay of mine, “The Woman Who Gardens with Bears.” I also have a short memoir – a love story, no less, called “The Fall Line” – in the current (Feb. 09) issue of Mountain Gazette. Check it out if you live where you can find a hard copy. The website http://www.mountaingazette.com/ is usually about a month behind.
