For 15 years, this was the view from my windows in Newport, Oregon. The soul opens up with a view like this, or anyway mine did, and you think about things: life, youth, character, kismet, bad weather and good fortune. It’s not an easy place. The air itself can weep, and that’s when it’s not raining outright. Or hailing. And it's always windy. You don’t just live on the Oregon coast; you engage it. You read the clouds and the weather and the Coast Guard flags and you duck and cover and wait for a favorable opening.

I’ve moved around the Pacific Northwest since then, and even left it briefly for southern California, but I think my years on the coast gave me my voice. My first two books, Going to Bend and Homesick Creek, were set on the Oregon coast, and I think now that they were love songs to the people who live there— good people struggling to live meaningful lives in a place where most things happen somewhere else.

My most recent book, Hannah’s Dream, moves north to the rolling hills and expansive views of the farmlands around Puget Sound, where things don't just happen, they unfold.