Pam Knudson Gullard at Elliott Bay Books

Elliott Bay Books hosts Pam Knudson Gullard for the second time to hear about her latest collection of fiction, Lake Crescent and Other Spirits. She will speak about the ingredients of powerful fiction, how books become memorable by matching the stories in our hearts. Please come! Bring your questions and comments. She hopes to see all her Seattle friends, especially those from Shorecrest High!

Asked by an interviewer about the title of her work, the replied:

Lake Crescent is a huge, deep lake in the Olympic National Forest three hours northwest of Seattle. Jumping into the water is like speeding through burning liquid ice. I am not brave, but when I was twenty, I lived alone through the summer in a one-room cabin near the edge of the lake. This astonishes me still. There was no phone, no heat, not a soul around. My family in Seattle was on a slow roll of breaking up, my boyfriend was in California, and at night, I asked myself how big a window had to be for a cougar to climb in. Or an axe murderer. In the evening, we college kids with jobs at the national park gathered at the small pebbled beach. Cold trees like giant, indifferent gods towered over us as we lay on our backs, our heads on a log, and scanned the Pleiades for shooting stars. At the edge of that glacial lake, I started to write and to piece together the spirit that would become myself.

Category: Arts | Books and Literature