Greetings!

What would you do if you discovered that the memory that defined your life wasn't really true?
That's the question that rises to my mind as I hold my first copy of The Memory Weaver. It will soon be on the bookstore shelves, in libraries and on e-reader devices. Even apps! And there's to be a Dutch translation of the book and an audio version as well. This story is in many ways about the bigness of the western landscape and how it and their memories shaped two women, a mother and daughter - and their extended families. But most of all it is about a woman who as a child survived a great tragedy and how those days of sorrow and the landscapes that eventually brought her healing helped shape her.
            
Among western history buffs, the Spalding name is as familiar as rivers that carve the landscape. With Narcissa and Marcus Whitman, Eliza Spalding Warren's parents, Henry and Eliza Spalding, crossed the Missouri River heading west responding to a request of four Nez Perce young men seeking someone to bring the "Book of Heaven" to their people. The Spaldings landed in what is now Lapwai, Idaho living and working among the Nez Perce. The Whitmans went on to settle at Waiilatpu, or the "place of the rye grass" west of present day Walla Walla, Washington. These missionary couple's choices of western landscape shaped the remainder of their lives.
           
Eliza, the child, never made that cross country trip. She was born at the Lapwai mission, raised beside the Lapwai and the Clearwater Rivers and sent to school at the Whitman Mission 120 miles away along the Walla Walla River. There, when she was ten years old, measles and pain, betrayal and misunderstandings between the tribe the Whitmans had inserted themselves among and the settlers at the mission, brought on a tragedy known still today as the Whitman Massacre. Fourteen people died that November day and 54 others were held hostage for 47 days. Young Eliza Spalding, the only hostage who knew the native language, was one of them.
           
How did her memory protect her in later years and how did it fracture a young mother's life? How much of what she remembered was tangled like tobacco twists with other hostage memories and stories and even those who were not there but whom she heard testify at the trail. Thirteen Cayuse gave themselves up for trial hoping by doing so the indiscriminate killing by settlers of native people who had nothing to do with the Whitman tragedy would stop. Four Indian men were convicted and hung. Eliza saw it all and memory wrapped itself around her holding her hostage into her adult life.
           
While Eliza never crossed on what became known as the Oregon Trail, she did make an oxcart journey of her own. With a toddler in tow and a four month old baby, she traveled east from the Willamette Valley where she'd grown up after the tragedy, in Brownsville, Oregon. Without her husband, but with another couple, she headed back toward the site of her harshest memories. I saw her journey as reminiscent of Viet Nam veterans traveling back to the landscape that shaped their lives, seeking healing.Would Eliza find peace? Would her mother's diaries help her see with new eyes? Would she discover that what we remember isn't always the way it was and that facing tragic memories filtered through love may be the only way to heal? I hope you'll let me know if answered those questions when you've had a chance to read The Memory Weaver. (Follow this link to the first chapter!). And perhaps it will make you think of your memories and how they've held you hostage and maybe discover a way to let them transform you instead.

Happy Homestead Tales 
Our memoir Homestead (I call it our even though I wrote it) is now a part of a time capsule placed inside a brick structure to help dedicate a new bridge in Biggs Junction at the junction of Interstate I-84 and Highway 97 in Sherman County. That's where our story took place. You can watch the brief ceremony held at Biggs Junction on YouTube on June 16, 2015. You'll see Homestead on the table and wheat featured on the overpass. Beneath the overpass it reads "Journey through Time" which is also the name of a tour organized by the Sherman County Historical Society. That fine organization is the one that chose Homestead among other items to be placed in the time capsule. When will it be opened? Who knows? But I bet I won't be around to see it! Still, pretty exciting to think a book of mine is in a hermetically sealed capsule and might be held and read by a lover of story sometime in the next century.
Notes   
Some great new venues for The Memory Weaver. Southern Writer's magazine will feature the book and with a short story-behind-the-story written by me.

And USAdigital's Happy Ever After feature in September includes a short piece by me and the first chapter of The Memory Weaver.
 
Word Whisperings

   
 
The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey by Rinker Buck, published by Simon and Schuster, 2015.

           
What a delight! Rinker Buck and his brother, Nick, head off from Missouri with a wagon and three mules hoping to drive as much of the old Oregon Trail as still survives. It's a funny story of brothers in a big family finding their place; a poignant story of memory and how it bubbles up from our past when we least expect it; an adventure story where I held my breath for death was surely possible; a history lesson (among other things I learned that George Washington was an early breeder of mules); and most of all a story of pursing a dream. I could relate to this story but so could anyone living today who ever hoped to do something that other people thought was maybe a crazy adventure. Like getting married or having kids or starting a new job or...you get it: this is a story of life. "No one knows" what will happen, Mr. Buck states. And if one did know, one would likely not start out on the adventures that become defining choices of our lives. For example, Wendell Berry wrote of parenting that it was "a vexed privilege and a blessed trial." No one knows what the future holds. We have to solve the problems along the way. The only thing that is certain is uncertainty. Rink and his brother had a journey for the ages. In the front matter Mr. Buck quotes Willa Cather: "When I strike the open plains, something happens. I'm home. I breathe differently. That love of great spaces, of rolling open country like the sea, it's the grand passion of my life." Mine too. You'll love this book!
Landscape & Story
Author Wallace Stegner wrote "It is not an unusual life curve for Westerners - to live in and be shaped by the bigness, sparseness, space, clarity and hopefulness of the west." I am reminded of this truth as I note that I have now lived longer in Oregon than my years in Wisconsin growing up. I have been shaped by this western landscape - my marriage and career just two ways the wind and water, rocks and even fire, have carved me. A gift of my writing life is that it takes me to many Northwestern sites where I've met amazing people. I hope to meet a bunch more during the book launch that begins in Eastern Washington, Oregon and Idaho August 29-September 1 (see my schedule at right). The Willamette Valley launch party at the Atavista Event center in Brownsville, OR on September 13 will help visitors be steeped in history at Atavista as it's the former home of Eliza Spalding Warren's sister! Linda McCormick who wrote Spaldings of the West will share the stage with me showing slides of the Spalding family and stories of her research. She's been a jewel in my research and writing of The Memory Weaver.

We have other events related to the landscape of the internet! I'll be hosting a book giveaway starting September 1. Visit here to enter. 

If you are on Good Reads, Revell is hosting a book giveaway there. Better hurry as that ends September 1.

A blog tour begins then too so dozens of bloggers will be posting their reviews Gosh I hope they're good ones!

Publisher's Weekly gave it a good review and Romantic Times made it their top pick in August. You're free to add your reviews to Amazon and other sites after you've read the book.

We'll have a raffle drawing at the Atavista center for a quilt created by Yankee Dutch Quilting and Dry Goods  
of Brownsville that will benefit the local library. I like to think Eliza would have been a library patron. She was well read and she wrote her own memoir, too. 
We'll have a drawing for a gift basket composed of all kinds of goodies made available for those who aren't in the region so can't attend events.

We even had a last minute Facebook giveaway for the 4000th person who "liked" my page. Be sure to keep an eye on it as you never know when I might do another giveaway!
Oh, the changes in this western landscape!
 
Everyone loves a bargain, right?
We are having a half-off sale at Amazon for my book A Simple Gift of Comfort. Six dollars. There are thirteen left and when they're gone the book will only be available at local bookstores or through me (and I won't be paying for shelf space at Amazon). This little book continues to bring nurture for people struggling in their days. May it bring nurture to you. 
  
A blue moon only comes along once in a, well, blue moon! The second full moon in a month (which is what a blue moon is) occurred on July 31, 2015. It happened on our 39th wedding anniversary and won't happen again until 2018. The old Farmer's Almanac reported that the fourth full moon in a season of four full moons is also known as a blue moon. I have no idea when that might occur. Anniversaries only come along once a year. Thirty-nine is considered the "lace" year. Before the 16th century people didn't refer to lace as we know of the delicate strands of thread as lace. They called the weavings "ties." I think that's appropriate for a wedding anniversary of some length. Jerry and I didn't give each other anything with that fine fiber art but we did gift ourselves with a natural kind of lace...and that was the moon filtered through Ponderosa Pine needles casting its glow over the labyrinth at First Presbyterian Church. I don't remember what we did last year for our anniversary nor many I'm sad to say. But I think this one will remain in my memory for the beauty, sharing the walk with community and the blessing of a blue moon. It's a curiosity to me that the Hebrew word for religion is translated as "tying again." I love that we were able to tie our marriage vows again with the lace of the moon, trees and a labyrinth built right beside the church we attend but for the entire community to use. I hope you find places this fall to lace your relationships anew with the threads of family, friends and faith.
 
 
 
 
Warmly,
 
Jane Kirkpatrick
 
Remember to check my schedule on the right bar and also on my website for my latest events!
Schedule
Jane's Schedule
Note: Additional information and/or registration info can be found by visiting Jane's Calendar on her website.  (See link below.)

August 29 - 9-12:00am Lewiston, ID Telling Your Story, a memoir-writing workshop.

August 29 - 2:-4:00pm Clarkston, WA, ...and Books, too book signing

August 29 6-8:00pm Asotin, WA, Asotin Public Library
August 30 1-3:00pm Lapwai, ID Nez Perce National Park - presentation and signing

August 31, 6:30-8:00pm, Walla Walla, Washington, Walla Walla public library

September 1 - 7:00pm Hermiston, OR Altrusa's Evening with Jane Kirkpatrick

September 4 - 5-8:00pm First Friday, Hood River, OR

September 10 -7:00pm Salem, OR The Book Bin, presentation and signing

September 12 - 9:-4:30 pm Centralia, WA Southwest Washington Writer's Conference Keynote, workshop teaching and signing

September 13   11:15 - DAR dedication of Eliza Spalding grave marker, Brownsville cemetery. Jane will attend
Noonish - 2:00 - lunch on your own including at Kirk's Ferry, Brownsville. Jane will stop by and chat  2:--4:00 Brownsville, OR Atavista Event Center - presentations by Jane and Linda McCormack, refreshments by Brownsville Women's Club, surprises and book signing.

September 15 - 7:00pm Beaverton, OR Cedar Hills Crossing, Powell's Books, presentation and signing

September 19 - 5:00pm Sunriver Books and Gifts, Sunriver, OR presentation and signing

September 21 - 6:00pm Redmond, OR Paulina Springs Books, presentation and signing

September 22 - 6:00pm Sisters, OR Paulina Springs Books, presentation and signing

September 25 - 6:00pm Florence, OR Florence Festival of Books, keynote and signing

September 26 - 10-4:00pm Florence Festival of Books, all day chatting and selling books!

   
 
 Visit Jane's website at  www.jkbooks.com for more information about upcoming events.
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