I grew up in a house where creativity lived in the walls. Cartoons taped along cabinets, carved rocks on display, a small unicorn painting near the coffee cups, and a 4-foot plaster cast of illustrated ducks hung on our dining room wall. As a child, I didn’t realize how these surroundings shaped my memories. They …
I am an unrepentant regional chauvinist. I believe in my heart that those of us lucky enough to call the Pacific Northwest home live in one of the best places on the planet. Perhaps because I was raised in the region—at the base of the foothills of təqʷubəʔ (aka Mount Rainier)—I have always had a …
I’ve been a fan of comics since I was a kid, and my passion for the form grew during my employment at Heroes World distribution in the ’80s. While my co-workers at the warehouse were pouring over (and speculating on) Marvel and D.C. superhero books, I was reading Love and Rockets, Yummy Fur, Lloyd Llewllyn, Good Girls, and Raw, …
In the small island community of Ebey’s End, life is quiet and sort of “normal” – whatever that is. And then along comes July, newly orphaned and in need of a place to live and grow. That’s where Anita the grocer, July’s sort-of-cousin, comes in. The social worker wants to park 14-year-old July at her …
I grew up in the shadow of mountains, along the mucky edges of the Nisqually River Delta on the outskirts of Olympia. On a rare clear day, you could see the Olympics to the West. Mount Rainier towered to the East. Our rambler abutted a tract of undeveloped forest land near Luhr Beach. Expansive, wild, …
The River You Touch by Chris Dombrowski is a beautiful meditation on fatherhood, Montana, and a life dedicated to communing with nature. Dombrowski uses his beautiful poet’s touch to describe the wonder of Montana that we know and love. A book you’ll want to share with anyone and everyone! –Frances, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, MT This …
Sparks fly in a steamy encounter between Meg and a mystery man on the ferry– but finds out later that that man is Ethan Fine, an environmentalist with plans to convert her community’s decrepit pickleball court into wetlands. As it happens, he’s also a fan of the sport… The ever-growing pickleball has made its way …
Inside a rented house on bluff in Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, I’m one of four women on a DIY writer’s retreat. A wall of tall windows shows a blue scene: a bend in the Mississippi River, cloud cover, deciduous trees, buzzards tilting just beyond our overlook. Inside, having run or walked or stretched to clear our …
Perhaps I shouldn’t admit this. But every time I write a book, it’s only at the very end that I find out what it was actually about. Somehow, I’m surprised every single time this happens. I write middle-grade narrative nonfiction, which may seem like it’s straightforward. My books all stem from questions I have or …
