“I gobbled the book in one sitting, shed some real tears with and for you and Martha along the way, and enjoyed it all tremendously. You are a fine storyteller, and Martha’s story is full of such rich detail . . .”

So said Kathy Westra, a writer for the American Forestry Foundation magazine, Woodland, after reading my book, A Place of Her Own.

An email recently came to me out of the blue from Kathy. She had been assigned to write a feature story for Woodland  (Photo of Autumn 2013 issue at left) about my family’s Oregon tree farm, and about A Place of Her Own, which tells the story of my great-great-grandmother Martha, who bought this farm almost 150 years ago. The foundation, headquartered in Washington, D.C., serves tree farmers across the US, and their magazine, an attractive full-color quarterly, has a nationwide circulation.

I was excited to hear from her, and we had a wonderful phone interview that lasted close to an hour and a half.

Due to her deadlines, my publisher, Globe Pequot, sent her an e-galley of the book. And the above quote is what she wrote to me after she read it. That feels a bit like my first review, and I’m smiling. 🙂

The feature story will appear in the summer issue of Woodland along with pictures. I’m a Certified Tree Farmer, like my father before me, through the American Tree Farm System of the foundation. In fact, to be recertified when I acquired the farm, I had to break away from writing the book about Martha to write a new Tree Farm Management Plan and have a qualified forester visit the property. My thanks to Rick Barnes, local timber specialist, for facilitating all that.

And now, my thanks to Kathy for her story and her positive words.

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Martha has a new ribbon for the cover of her book—a rich brown, like the rich dark earth. M-m-m… Or rich chocolate.

Marketing went for a bolder look for A Place of Her Own and replaced the white ribbon with the brown.

I’m liking it.

Martha probably knew a lot more about rich earth than rich chocolate. I remember when we planted our hazelnut trees in a field on the bottomland of the farm, nursery stock we got from Martha’s Lane County farm to plant on her Douglas County farm (see “The Tree Link” below). I had been gardening in a lot of marginal soils in other places I’d lived. When we dug into the ground to plant those trees, I just knelt and sifted that rich dark earth through my fingers. I had never planted anything in soil so beautiful.

And now I think I’ll go out to the kitchen and get a small piece of chocolate. Just a little nibble.

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With the pub date approaching on Martha’s book, I’m starting to schedule signings and readings.

The Country Launch

The first book launch party will be held close to home on a Sunday afternoon, June 1, from 1 to 3 p.m. in Elkton, Oregon, where I went to school as a kid. It’ll be at the Elkton Community Education Center (ECEC) library. That’s just west of Elkton—by the butterfly pavilion. A lovely venue. We’ll have refreshments, a short reading at 2 p.m., Q&A, plenty of chit-chat, and copies of my book of course, hot off the press, which I’ll happily sign.

The ECEC is always worth a stop. Besides the butterfly pavilion, there’s the reconstructed Fort Umpqua down by the river, a step into the past of Martha’s day, a café for a bite to eat, a lovely gift shop, a nature trail, flower and vegetable gardens, crops typical of the fort’s era, a plant and produce shop with offerings from the onsite gardens, and more. Elktonites are rightly proud of this unique establishment.

So if you’d like to take a Sunday afternoon jaunt for a party, books, and all that the ECEC has to offer, come on out June 1.

The City Launch

A second book launch party will be held Saturday afternoon, June 7, 1 to 3 p.m. in the city of Roseburg at the delightful While Away Books, a friendly bookstore at 932 West Harvard Avenue. They have their own small café and lots of used books at great prices, with a few new books too. It’s in the small shopping center just off Harvard (cross street is Umpqua Street) on your right a couple of blocks or so past the freeway as you head east from town—behind Subway.

We’ll have refreshments there also, reading at 2 p.m., Q&A, more chit-chat, and of course copies of my own book which I can sign for you.

This bookstore really supports local authors, so with that and the great atmosphere it’s a Roseburg gem. If you’re in the Roseburg area, come join us on the 7^th of June.

Future Events

More signings are in the works—one at Tsunami Books in Eugene and one at the Douglas County Museum. I’ll post on those soon.

Events, Book News, & Reviews

In the near future I’ll be adding a new “Events” page to my blog to offer information on scheduled events, and a page for “Book News” so you can keep up with what’s going on. When reviews begin coming in I’ll add a “Reviews” page. A calendar of events is now located on the sidebar.

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