I'll be out at our fishcamp tomorrow, on Harvester Island (Alaska). The commercial salmon season begins in 2 days. We are tense with anticipation---and hoping for better prices this year. This is my 31st season out in the Alaskan bush. A 30 minute flight in a Saratoga bush plane will take me from my home in Kodiak across the heavily snowed mountains of the island to our small island. I've made this migratory trip---moving from one body of water, from one life to another--- too many times to count.
Just yesterday I finished another book manuscript, 2 1/2 years in the making, delivered to the publishers---which means this summer I will be more awake and alive to the life around me: listening to the tidal surge on the rocks, the oystercatchers as they patrol our one beach, the salmon sputtering in the skiff as we deliver them to the tender. I leave town schedules behind---and will move and live according to weather, tides, fishing, my crews' appetites, all with the organic flux and spasms of the living rather than the mechanism of clocks, timecards and school hours.
I hope to be in better contact this summer. We've upgraded our satellite system on our island so our Internet will be a bit more regular. Strange, our current satellite system doesn't work in the rain (which is often)---but our radio-phone (an archaic half-duplex radio phone, to be exact) won't work when it's sunny. It means I am not usually entirely cut off from the civilized, or other-scheduled world!
I know of several book clubs who will be reading "Surviving the Island of Grace." I want to repeat the offer given to other book clubs: I am happy to respond personally to any book club questions or interviews. Just let me know which book you're reading, and we'll set something up---either by conference call or by email. It's a blast to hear directly from readers and to share a bit more of the life, the work and the writing behind the books.
More later. Good summer reading to you all!
Leslie
