My father was a young G.I. stationed in Puerto Rico when he met my mother. She barely spoke English. He barely spoke Spanish. By the time they eloped, they’d mastered the art of communication. Within an acceptable amount of time, they bore two daughters, of which I’m the youngest. Thus began my career as a Gypsy Queen, if you can tap into your imagination and substitute spoiled brat for queen; base housing for a sheep-herder’s wagon; and instead of being driven from Andalusia by an angry, torch-burning mob, we were most likely being driven from Minnesota to a new bivouac in Michigan by way of orders.
My one constant in those gypsy days of moving from Montana to England to Texas to Morocco to Illinois to California: I still had my same family: Mom, Dad, troublemaking older sister, Jody. I also had books, although I never read any of them. That came later. Until then, my imagination ruled. I daydreamed a lot. Still do.
Another constant was summers spent in Puerto Rico, it’s no wonder my first novel is set in the coffee region of my mother’s hometown of Adjuntas.
The Principles of Mining was inspired by the true account of opposition to open-pit mining in the central mountains of Puerto Rico. The rest of my story is made up and is in no way related to family. The town of Adjuntas is geographically real, but not the same town I portray in my novel. Go elsewhere if you are family and are looking for someone you know. It’s not them.
My roots these past twenty years have been planted in Boise, Idaho, where I like to commiserate with family and friends.
Some of my favorite authors are Richard Ford, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Franzen, Raymond Carver, John Updike, Don DeLillo, Anne-Marie MacDonald, Sara Grüen, Anthony Doerr, Alice Munro, Paul Auster, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, Isabel Allende, Pete Dexter, Amy and David Sedaris, James Morrow, Kurt Vonnegut, and Stephen King, for starts...
