A Story’s Concentric Circles

It's an honor to be honored with this honorable honor: There Is No Map for This has been selected as a Whippoorwill Honor book.

The Whippoorwill Award is for "books that portray the complexity of rural living by dispelling stereotypes and demonstrating diversity among rural people."

I admit that I wasn't thinking about dispelling stereotypes or demonstrating anything in particular when I wrote the story. My goal was to explore loss and the different ways in which we grieve, as well as the definition of masculinity, through the eyes and experience of a 17-year-old young man from Mountain Gate, Oregon. But one of the many cool things about writing is that the world you create can resonate and have meaning in unexpected ways — concentric circles of connection. Here's to readers in all their beautiful forms — rural, suburban, urban, whatever — and the path they forge out into the unwritten.

P.S. There Is No Map for This is available in both print and e-book forms, wherever books are sold. If you'd like an autographed copy (of the print form) for yourself or as a gift, click the link below. It will take you to our local independent bookseller in Corvallis, Oregon — Grass Roots. I'd be honored to personalize it.

https://www.grassrootsbookstore.com/item/AfhN0cmCTzVO2f0hYEFQng