December has been an exciting month for my writerly life: I received notification of acceptance of two pieces for publication in 2019. A personal essay entitled SECOND CHANCE will be published by the Round Table Literary Journal in April, and a small collection of haiku poems entitled NORDIC IMPRESSIONS will be published in the 2019 Redwood Writers Poetry Anthology.

Here’s a haiku from NORDIC IMPRESSIONS:

Family biking in Copenhagen
Dad presses pedals as
mom and two kids in front box
toss waves at friends

These poems were all composed on a new iPhone app for creating Haiku poetry called Maiku. It was the perfect tool for capturing scenes and impressions of my journey through Scandinavia–Sweden, Denmark, & Norway–in Fall 2018.

Here are a few photos from my Nordic journey:

Balestrand, a village nestled at the base of the Sognefjord

Family apple orchard in Balestrand, Norway

Public ferry crossing Norway’s largest fjord, Sognefjord

Second Chance

SECOND CHANCE tells the story of my mother, who in 1965 at age forty and eight months pregnant with her sixth child, quits her secretarial job and with quiet determination pursues a college degree after years of scraping by since the failure of our Wyoming ranch in 1957. During my freshman year of college that spring of ’65, I convinced my mom to take the risk, certain a college education would get her and our family on a sounder economic footing.

I’m all set to attend Fishtrap again this summer 2018! I especially look forward to participating in five days of fiction writing workshops with Nina McConigley, whose writing I greatly admire. We also share a love for stories set in Wyoming. Not too surprising since we both spent a part of our childhoods there and Nina is a professor of writing at the University of Wyoming in Laramie.

Nina McConigley – Fiction

A cluster of interested readers attended my first Tent Talk at the Tucson Festival of Books on the University of Arizona campus. An amazing event with thousands of people browsing the campus mall in search of their favorite authors and to learn about new books like mine. I was a bit starstruck when I encountered Luis Alberto Urrea, having learned that he was a finalist for the Pulitzer prize for fiction this year. I met Luis last summer 2017 at Fishtrap writer’s gathering in beautiful Joseph, Oregon. Never imagined then that his writing would achieve such prominence. Well deserved and very exciting. I’m reading his latest novel now: House of Broken Angels. 

Here are Parts 1 & 2 of my Wyoming book tour. This one-week trip in early August was both a sentimental journey to my childhood ranch in northwest Wyoming (the setting for my debut novel, Hardpan) and tour of indie bookstores in the state, starting with Laramie, then Cheyenne, Casper, Cody, and Jackson.

I’ve been getting ready for weeks. Firmed up stops in Laramie, Cheyenne, Casper, Cody, & Jackson Hole. Towns that form a diagonal across the state from southeast to northwest Wyoming, through Yellowstone National Park to the Grand Tetons.

Bookstores and local newspapers with names that echo the rural West: Wind City Books in Casper and Legends Bookstore in Cody; the Laramie Boomerang and the Jackson Hole News&Guide.

Bob & I will drive to our family ranch near Clark where my family lived in the mid-1950s—the place that inspired my debut novel, Hardpan.

But this time our ranch house won’t be there. During my last visit in 1973, I didn’t imagine our ranch house would burn down a few years later. Even so, the ranch land will be there—all thirteen hundred acres of it.

I’ll marvel at the rugged expanse of sagebrush and cultivated fields interrupted by the Clarks Fork River winding its way to the Yellowstone. I’ll wonder at alfalfa fields that continue to defy the pounding winds and moisture-starving sun.

And the spectacular setting won’t have changed much. That backdrop of the rugged Rocky Mountains soaring to Colter Pass at Cooke City, Montana will look as majestic as ever.

I’m counting on meeting up with a handful of our former neighbors from Clark and Badger Basin. People like the Torczons and the Teicherts who’ve moved to nearby towns over the years, and younger generations who are carrying on the ranch traditions.

My mother has copied me on her yellowed hand-written list of names and addresses of her Wyoming friends, many lined out as people have moved or died. After all, it’s been over half-a-century since we lived in this mythical place.

I’m buzzing at the prospect of meeting new people who are interested in reading my book, and with Wyoming natives who’ve already read it and want to discuss it with me. They’re eager to find out more about this tale of a young ranch family dealing with unexpected challenges and hardships in the era after World War II, a tale that resonates with their own lives.

So jump into the old pickup, my friends. Come along with me on this journey to the Old West. The West before paved roads found remote cattle ranches in northwest Wyoming. The West before televisions and computers and the Internet took over everyday communications. Together we’ll discover today’s pioneers in this starkly beautiful landscape.

An early version of the book cover for Hardpan. Photo of our family’s pickup used in move from Wyoming to Central California in 1957.

Join me on Tuesday, July 19th for Hot Summer Nights at Copperfield’s Books in Santa Rosa. I’ll be reading from my novel, Hardpan.

The event starts at 7 p.m. and features me and three other authors: Waights Taylor, Jr. (Touch of Redemption), Arlene Miller (The Best Little Grammar Book Ever!), and John Grayson Heide (The Flight of the Pickerings).

Copperfield’s Books
Montgomery Village
775 Village Court
Santa Rosa,  CA