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The fog and rain welcome me back! I’ve just returned from Sante Fe, New Mexico----from teaching in the MFA program. Quite a lovely shock to leave behind a 50 degree foggy, rainy Alaskan summer to two weeks of sun-burnt 85 in the beautiful desert! But alas, we cannot have all we want all the time! So I am back---almost. Still weathered out from our fishcamp island. Fog to the ground, the classic zero-zero conditions that we know so well! No planes made it out all day, so nearly every bed in the entire town is taken---the hotels are full, all the B+B’s are full, and my house is full as well, with 4 more people who would be sleeping in the airport otherwise.
Other news:
- My essay, “Body Double” has appeared in an exciting, groundbreaking book just out: Mama, Ph.D: Women Writer about Motherhood and Academic Life (Rutgers univ. Press). It’s getting good press—which it deserves.
- Surviving the Island of Grace will be out in paperback by the end of August. It’s got a new cover (gorgeous and haunting---a photo of the actual island—not a stock photo!) I’ll be touring and doing some readings and slide shows of that haunting island and the commercial salmon fishing we do there in October.
- My new MFA students (in creative nonfiction) are incredibly diverse and well, just plain incredible! We had an amazing fortnight together with all the other Seattle Pacific University MFA students---it promises to be an intense (always) but fruitful year ahead!
Tomorrow, fog-willing, I return to fishcamp for my last three weeks of the salmon season. It’s been a strange, anomalous year, with many fewer fish than usual. The upside of this economic dearth is that we’ve actually been able to experience some of the usual joys of summer---taking skiff trips, visiting with fishermen friends at other fishcamps, picking salmonberries, adventures in a strange cabin on a deserted beach.
Thanks for reading. Drop me a line when you get a chance!
Yours in words, in the lovely sound of pages turning and computers scrolling,
Leslie
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