Dozens of authors are getting set to make their way to Sisters for the third Sisters Festival of Books, set for September 12-14.
The writers are looking forward to engaging with readers in panels, workshops, and presentations. Kelly Ramsey’s appearance will be particularly timely. She is the author of “Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West.”
When Kelly Ramsey drives over a California mountain pass to join an elite firefighting crew, she’s terrified that she won’t be able to keep up with the intense demands of the job. Not only will she be the only woman on this hotshot crew and their first in ten years, she’ll also be among the oldest. As she trains relentlessly to overcome the crew’s skepticism and gain their respect, megafires erupt across the West, posing an increasing danger both on the job and back home. In vivid prose that evokes the majesty of Northern California’s forests, Kelly takes us on the ground to see how major wildfires are fought and to lay bare the psychological toll, the bone-deep weariness, and the unbreakable camaraderie that emerge in the face of nature’s fury.
Ramsey told The Nugget that she is very much looking forward to engaging with “a real literary community in this small town.”
“I just love meeting readers – whether they’ve read the book or not,” she said.
The Nugget interviewed Ramsey just before the Flat Fire erupted north of Sisters and marched south to put the community in danger. It’s an increasingly common scenario in the American West.
“We all just live with fire every summer,” Ramsey reflected.
Ramsey’s wildland firefighting career was in parallel with a long-time urge to write.
“I wrote my first short story when I was 12,” she said.
A poetry-writing workshop during college cemented her determination to follow her muse.
“I thought, ‘this is what I’m going to do – I’m going to be a poet. That best-paying of professions.'”
Ramsey moved to Northern California, where she worked for the U.S. Forest Service as a trail maintenance worker, wilderness ranger, and wildland firefighter on a hotshot crew. Hotshots are highly trained wildfire ground crews who respond to high priority fires. They are considered an elite among firefighters.
“There’s a lot of pride in a job well done, and doing something important and meaningful,” Ramsey said.
Despite the satisfaction of the work, Ramsey left firefighting to pursue family life and writing.
“There’s a way in which I’m really sad that I got out, and a part of me that’s relieved,” she said.
Ramsey said that she has thought a great deal about the role of women in the work. She said the more that women work in fire, the less they will be tokenized. She believes that their role and diversity in the makeup of firefighting organizations is important.
“It actually strengthens organizations,” she said. “Having more female leadership makes firefighting operations more safe.”
In the wake of her success with Wildfire Days, Ramsey said she is “coaching writers to help them finish the first draft of their books – so that has been really fun.”
Ramsey will offer a reading presentation at Sisters Movie House, 2:15 to 3:05 p.m. on Saturday, September 13.
Also reading at the Movie House at that time will be Kristina McMorris, author of the historical novel “The Girls of Good Fortune.”
Portland, 1888.
Amid the subterranean labyrinth of the notorious Shanghai Tunnels, a woman awakens in an underground cell, drugged and disguised. Celia soon realizes she’s a “shanghaied” victim on the verge of being shipped off as forced labor, leaving behind those she loves most. Although well accustomed to adapting for survival – being half-Chinese, passing as white during an era fraught with anti-Chinese sentiment – she fears that far more than her own fate lay at stake.
As she pieces together the twisting path that led to her abduction, from serving as a maid for the family of a dubious mayor to becoming entwined in the case of a goldminers’ massacre, revelations emerge of a child left in peril. Desperate, Celia must find a way to escape and return to a place where unearthed secrets can prove even more deadly than the dark recesses of Chinatown.
McMorris’ presentation will focus on the historical background of her novel; the audience won’t have to have read the book to get a lot out of the presentation – and readers will get deeper insight into the historical context.
“I share things you won’t necessarily get from the page,” McMorris said.
McMorris told The Nugget that she got the germ of the idea for the story after a friend told her about a ghost-hunting show on TV that talked about the Shanghai Tunnels in Portland.
“I was largely raised in the Portland area, so you would have thought I’d at least have heard of the Shanghai Tunnels at some point,” she said.
The fact that she hadn’t is indicative of the hidden nature of this dark history of a city that was once a dangerous and deeply corrupt port town of the Wild West.
“From there, I went down a research rabbit hole,” McMorris said.
A sailor who was “shanghaied” might be drugged or clouted in a Portland bar, wake up on a ship at sea, and be given a choice – to serve aboard in the China trade, or…
McMorris acknowledged that the subject matter of her work tends to be dark episodes that are swept under the rug.
“I do like shining a spotlight on pieces of history that we should know,” she said. However, she noted, “through those dark elements, there’s always hope and growth.”
McMorris’ love of history combines with a cinematic bent in her writing.
“For me, storytelling is very visual in my mind,” she said. “I do my best to convey the movie in my head on the pages of a book.”
McMorris loves interacting with readers and is looking forward to doing so at the Sisters Festival of Books. She frequently connects with book clubs through Zoom. She is looking forward to participating in the author dinner that has become an anticipated element of Sisters Festival of Books – especially since “The Girls of Good Fortune” includes themed recipes.
– Festival of Books Lineup –
Sisters Festival of Books kicks off on Friday, September 12, with a Story Slam at The Belfry and a publishing workshop at Slow Down State. It continues with author presentations and more on Saturday, September 13. For tickets and more information, visit https://www.sistersfob.org.
Author Bio
Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.