Janet fisher

“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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