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Sacred Places

April 7, 2018

The earth has spirit. You can feel it everywhere. But in some places, the power of that spirit makes itself known in extraordinary ways. When I stand at the edge of Lake Superior and watch great waves roll in across that vast stretch of steel blue water and break against the rocky shoreline, the power of Kitchigami (as the Ojibwe call it) is so palpable. On a prairie hill where the wind out of the Dakotas bends the tall grass all around me, I can hear the spirit speak. And from the brilliant red rocks of Sedona, where I am right now, the spirit radiates from every cliff face, deep canyon, and high, solitary vista.

In our daily lives, we wear blinders. Work, commitments, keeping up with the news, these distractions and a hundred others narrow our awareness of the beauty that is around us always. And so, it’s good to get away whenever we can, to put the human world behind us for a little while and focus on listening, feeling, appreciating the spirit of the earth and all the regenerative power that spirit offers us. It’s important, I believe, to connect with the elemental world, which is so vibrant and alive. Our spirits are strengthened. Our souls comforted. Our hope restored.

Now I’m going for a walk and I’ll do my best to be receptive to the beautiful spirit around me. Wherever you are—in a city, a town, a farmhouse—maybe you should take a walk, too. The great, restorative power of the earth is everywhere. Just open yourself to it.

Personal

2017 Highlights

December 29, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Looking back on some favorite memories from 2017…

March: In Arizona’s Red Rocks country, beside Dry Beaver Creek. But as you can see, in spring, it’s anything but dry. I took a solo hike into the back country to try to unravel a few knots in the plotting of the Cork O’Connor novel I’m working on right now, Desolation Mountain (#17 in the series). Walking alone is always a good way to let my imagination run wild. And even if the ideas don’t come, the hike is heavenly.

May: Can you go home again? The answer, I’m very happy to say, is a resounding, “Yes!” When I returned to Hood River, Oregon, where I’d spent some of the most important years of my life, I received the warmest of welcomes. My high school classmates, some of whom I hadn’t seen in nearly fifty years, the committee that had worked so hard to plan the Hood River Reads program, the students in the schools where I spoke, and the crowd who joined me at the library to hear what I had to say about Ordinary Grace, all embraced this prodigal son with an affection that moved me deeply.

June: Hanging tough at the California Crime Writers Conference in L.A. with Matt Coyle, Elizabeth Little, Hallie Ephron, Glen Hamilton and Craig Faustus Buck.

July: Hamline Church United Methodist partnered with the Ain Dah Yung Center (ADYC) for a pizza feed at the bread oven on the church’s lawn. ADYC is an amazing organization that houses Native youths who are homeless or whose home lives are precarious. The kids from Ain Dah Yung, other volunteers, and I pulled pizzas fresh from the wood-fired oven and served them—for free!—to anyone who dropped by.

August: Sulfur Springs was published, and one of the early stops on the book tour was Mystery to Me in Madison, WI.

September: It took eighteen books, but I finally cracked the top ten on the New York Times bestseller list. I not only cracked the list, but I cracked open a decent bottle of champagne to mark the occasion. A huge thank you to everyone out there who bought a book and helped me reach this moment!

September: My wife Diane and I color-coordinated with the Sulfur Springs cover for this signing at Book Passage in Marin County, CA.

September: On my way to the South Dakota Festival of Books in Deadwood, I paused at this magnificent statue of Sacagawea on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River just outside Chamberlain. It’s only a year old and is a striking tribute to the young woman without whom Lewis and Clark would, quite literally, have been up a creek.

September: I wrapped up my tour swing to the East with a signing at the wonderful Vero Beach Book Center, in Vero Beach, Florida. A full house and an attentive audience: what more could any author ask for? I followed up with a well-deserved drink on the beach.

October: A great big welcome from the public library in Kearney, NE, where I spoke at their One Author Kearney event.

November: Here I am in picturesque Grand Marais, MN, an iconic community on the shore of Lake Superior, just shy of the Canadian Border. I presented at the North Shore Readers and Writers Festival, organized by the Grand Marais Art Colony. A bunch of my good friends, also fine writers, were here as well, including Faith Sullivan, Peter Geye, Mary Casanova, and Erin Hart. It’s a wonderful festival, and if you’ve never attended, be sure to put it on your calendar for next year.

November: I had a lovely time on my birthday this year. Did some good writing in the morning, got in a workout, celebrated with my wife at a local fun spot—check out the photo—and polished off the evening watching one of my favorite Bogart movies, “The Maltese Falcon.” Every day should be so fine.

December: I finished up the year on the cover of Minnesota Good Age magazine. You can read the article here.

Happy New Year, and happy reading to all in 2018!

Book tours, Personal, Sulfur Springs

Can you go home again?

April 25, 2017

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Thomas Wolfe didn’t think you can go home again. This weekend, I’m going to find out if he was right.

The photo is what I looked like at seventeen, when I lived in Hood River, Oregon, a small town on the south bank of the Columbia River. I spent most of my high school years there, years important to me in so many ways. The town folks have chosen my novel Ordinary Grace for their annual Hood River Reads program. On Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I’ll be presenting a writer’s workshop, speaking to the community, and dropping into the schools to talk with students.

It’s been a long time since I visited, and I’ve never been back in this way before, returning to discuss my writing, and especially Ordinary Grace, a novel that, in many respects, Hood River helped to shape. I’m looking forward to cruising past the house my family occupied, making a pilgrimage to the place where I first kissed a girl, standing on the football field where I was a terrible quarterback. I hope to be gathering with friends who still call Hood River their home.

Although Minnesota is my home now, the place that makes my heart sing, I still think about Hood River all the time. The past is never dead. It’s with us always, alive in our memories. It can still excite us, scare us, thrill us. All that we were a part of, every adolescent antic, can still make us cringe or laugh or cry. Probably, when I’m in Hood River, I’ll experience all these things.

Postscript:

Can you go home again? The answer, I’m very happy to say, is a resounding, “Yes!”

When I returned to Hood River, Oregon, where I’d spent some of the most important years of my life, I received the warmest of welcomes. My high school classmates, some of whom I hadn’t seen in nearly fifty years, the committee that had worked so hard to plan the Hood River Reads program, the students in the schools where I spoke, and the crowd who joined me at the library to hear what I had to say about Ordinary Grace, all embraced this prodigal son with an affection that moved me deeply.

Hood River is one of the most beautiful places on earth, maybe rivaled only by the beauty in the hearts of the people who continue to call it home.

Book tours, Ordinary Grace, Personal

2016 Highlights

December 27, 2016

Posted by William Kent Krueger

Looking back on some favorite memories from 2016…

January: A fan,Kate Olsen, took this photo of me on the sly. The coffee shop is one of the many where I sit and write very early every morning. I love the photo. It reminds me of one of my favorite paintings, Hopper’s “Nighthawks.”

February: A full house in Alexandria, MN for the Douglas County One Book, One Community Read! Thanks to Tessa Dutcher for the photo.

March: I visited southern Arizona to research #16 in my Cork O’Connor series, Sulfur Springs. Here I am atop Montezuma Pass in the Coronado National Memorial. Visible behind me is the wide San Pedro River Valley, the route Coronado used to enter this territory. It’s also a corridor for the entry of illegal aliens seeking sanctuary here in the states. Sulfur Springs will be about this difficult situation confronting Americans north and south of a border now marked by an enormous fence visible even from this great height.

April: My wife and I spent a weekend in Omaha with lots of family. While there, we visited the National Park Service’s Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Headquarters. Fascinating! Among the many items on display were reproductions of the uniforms the expedition’s two leaders wore to impress the Native population they encountered. Anyone could don the clothing, and I couldn’t resist. But I think I look more like Napoleon than Meriwether Lewis.

June: Why do I love small town libraries? Because the wonderful librarians there know small town politics. Just look what Meredith Vaselaar, director of the branch library in Adrian, Minnesota, twisted the arms of the mayor and the city councilmen into doing for the day of my visit there. A ticker tape parade down Broadway in New York City couldn’t be any sweeter.

July: I was in Petoskey, Michigan, for a couple of book events sponsored by the Bay View Association, a Chautauqua community. As many of you Hemingway fans may know, Petoskey was one of Papa’s favorite haunts as he grew into manhood and became famous. Here I am at the City Park Grill. In Papa’s day, it was called the Annex, and he spent a good deal of time sitting at this bar, drinking, writing, probably holding forth vociferously with the locals. That’s him above me on the wall. I had to sit in the place he usually occupied (second stool from the end) and lift my glass in a toast to his memory.

August: Back to the southern Arizona desert, spitting distance from the border, to research Sulfur Springs. Don’t ever say that I don’t put everything on the line to make sure I get my stories right!

September: The Manitou Canyon book tour kicked off at Minneapolis’ Once Upon a Crime. Thanks to Mindy Mejia for the photo.

Manitou Canyon debuted at #11 on the New York Times bestseller list. Wahoo!!! Thanks to everyone who bought a copy early to help this happen.

October: Writer David Corbett and his dog Hamley were among the crowd at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA.

At the Great Valley Bookfest, held yearly in Manteca, California, the town in which I was living when I graduated from high school. What a terrific celebration of the written word. And just look at this! Local artist Kathleen Banzon was commissioned to paint the cover of Ordinary Grace for a permanent collection the Bookfest has begun. It wasn’t quite finished, but I was so honored to see this beautiful beginning.

On Sharp Top Mountain in Virginia.

November: The Sioux Falls Barnes & Noble really stocked up on Manitou Canyon!

At the New England Crime Bake’s “Mooses & Hunters 2016,” with Lucy Burdette, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Hallie Ephron.

December: Mystery Writers of America has asked those of us who’ve been fortunate enough to receive an Edgar Award for our work to send a current photo, author and the Edgar together. Eddie and I wish you all Happy Holidays and a Joyous New Year!

Book tours, Manitou Canyon, Personal

Bunker Hill

November 9, 2016

Posted by William Kent Krueger

I admit it. This morning I cried.

I’m in Boston for the New England Crime Bake, a great mystery conference coming up this weekend. I came to Boston early so that I could experience this place that, in so many ways, is the birthplace of American democracy. Today, I walked the Freedom Trail, which ended at Bunker Hill. Here I am at the foot of the memorial to that bloodiest battle of the Revolutionary War. When I read about the men who stood here, shoulder-to-shoulder, facing overwhelming odds because they understood that to die in defense of freedom was a noble thing, I wept.

It’s fitting that I’m here this morning. We have just come to the end of another hard-fought battle that, in its way, is a tribute to democracy. The reins of our government will soon be handed over in a bloodless exchange that, though not all may agree with, all should be willing to abide by, because the majority in this democracy has spoken.

Who we voted for yesterday is irrelevant now. The decision has been made. If we, all of us, truly believe in this way of government secured for us by those who stood ready to die on Bunker Hill, we will join together in unity. What has been a divisive period can now become, if we work with true hearts toward this end, a time of reconciliation.

I can’t help but feel that we stand on the threshold of a new political period, with incredible challenges ahead. I would like to believe that we can put aside rancor and stand shoulder-to-shoulder once again. What comes at us up the hill may not be the enemy of old. It may be the necessity of looking at ourselves and our world in a different way. It may be accepting some cold realities about the disillusionment of a great many of our fellow citizens and a government that often seems to serve its own self-interest above the interests of its people. There’s plenty of reason to wring our hands and cry that the end times are near, but that’s the easy response.

We are Americans, all. We have come from people who, at Bunker Hill and so many places like it, risked everything to defend the dream of a democratic nation. It seems to me time once again to roll up our sleeves and get down to the hard work of shaping a future. We can simply stand back and let others do the shaping and complain. Or we can take our place in this democracy, work within the guidelines a pretty good document called the Constitution of the United States, and find ways together to solve the problems that threaten us all. We don’t always have to agree with one another. But we should always do our best to respect one another.

And so I say with a full and hopeful heart on this day after a democratic election, God bless America.

Book tours, Personal

Archive for Personal

Sacred Places

2017 Highlights

Can you go home again?

2016 Highlights

Bunker Hill

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