Desolation Ghosts is a 65,000-word adult literary fiction novel in the vein of The Human Stain. It is set in North Cascades National Park and is about a missing traumatized female veteran with alcohol and relationship addictions who changes her mind about killing herself, but then falls off a mountain and must survive in the wilderness while park rangers battle over how much effort should be spent to locate her. The story takes place during the Covid-19 pandemic and the beginning of law enforcement reforms following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. This book will appeal to readers who are interested in national parks, outdoor recreation, the Pacific Northwest, and the controversial issue of how emergency services treat people with mental health challenges. It includes exciting stories, based on real-life events, about using rock climbing and short-haul helicopter techniques to rescue a pack string mule who fell off a trail and a mountain climber who fell off a crag, a shoot-out and its impact on park rangers, a couple drownings, an aquatic body recovery and other sad outdoor tragedies, and funny and scary encounters with bears and other wildlife. If you like Jack Kerouac, Nevada Barr, Bree Loewen, Jon Krakauer, Michael Connelly, James Dickey's Deliverance, Matthew Quick's The Silver Linings Playbook or Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin, you may enjoy Desolation Ghosts.

Sunday, November 7, 2021

Scavengers

Back in the eighties, my best friend from high school got sucked into Faces International, where she paid a significant amount of money for the chance to be discovered as a model. Someone I know now has fallen for a similar scheme to get her book published and has set up a Go Fund Me to do it. The hype I see around getting an agent - seminars, conventions, books and trainings about how to write books and queries, books and trainings about how to get published - it all feels pretty close to that lower level of production/scamming. But my husband reminds me that no matter how good (or bad) what you have to offer is, it still has to get noticed by the right person to get born and introduced to the world. It's all pretty overwhelming and foreign.

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