Archive for October, 2023
The Long Way From Iowa Book Tour Heads Back to France…
The coast-to-coast book tour for A Long Way From Iowa is now complete. Forty-nine days after the tour began at a library in Mystic, Connecticut, the final event was held last night–with a wonderful book group meeting in the home of a longtime friend, in Seattle.
It’s been a heartwarming, thrilling ride, and I am so grateful for the interest, support, and help I’ve received all along the way from friends, colleagues, family–as well as acquaintances, interested bystanders, and the public.
Stay tuned for the next installment in this adventure–and thanks so much for your interest!
Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.
Au Revoir, Portland, Bonjour Seattle!
After a 36-hour trip across the country on the Empire Builder –two nights on the train, and one full day–I arrived in Portland, Oregon.*
I boarded the train in St. Paul (Minnesota) at 11:00 pm on Friday night, and arrived in Portland Sunday morning shortly before noon. I had been warned that Amtrak trains are notoriously unreliable in terms of on-time arrival: nevertheless, this train was not only on time, but a bit early. Therefore I had plenty of time to get cleaned up and rested up enough to be the guest of honor at the book party my friends Ginnie and Rick hosted for me in their lovely home the following evening.
This party was a great success! The guest list was composed of a nice mix of Ginnie’s friends and mine–including one friend from my first neighborhood in St. Paul, a woman I had not seen since before we were even women, still just girls (we figured out that the last time had been when we were about 14 years old!). Another was a dear old friend from my time of living in New York. A third was actually someone I had never met, the friend of a mutual friend. And the fourth was Linda Witt, who served as moderator for a couple of panel discussions I organized about Demystifying the French–with Linda’s help–for the Fédération des Alliances Françaises USA.
I enjoyed meeting with this group so much! The questions they asked, and the comments they made proved to me yet again that there are many ways into the story I tell in A Long Way From Iowa, and each individual reader tends to find the path that is most interesting for him or herself. Therefore, as usual, when there is the opportunity to discuss a book with a group of readers, all kinds of interesting and alternative ways of reading it tend to be discovered.
The next night, Ginnie and some of her friends and I went to a Barbara Kingsolver event sponsored by Literary Arts. Kingsolver was discussing her latest novel, the Pulitzer prizewinning Demon Copperhead. Prior to this event I had had no opportunity to learn anything about the book, but I was very interested to see that it has strong connections with the theme I am exploring with my students in my current online class for Politics and Prose bookstore, “Bootstraps.” That is, poverty in America. I’ve since started reading Kingsolver’s book and it is very compelling.
The next day was spent on some furious catching up on reading and preparing for class. Being three hours behind most of the students in my class meant that this time I had to be ready to teach at 6:45 am. It also meant that once class was over, I had a good deal of daytime ahead of me in which to explore Portland, and happily it worked into my friend Larry Kirkland’s schedule. He invited me to join him and some friends on a trip to Portland’s famous Japanese Garden, which was amazing!
By Friday my friend Ginnie and I were finally caught up enough on our various professional responsibilities that we were able to do a little bit of sightseeing. Ginnie’s husband Rick generously offered to be our chauffeur and tour guide on a drive to, and through, the beautiful Columbia River Gorge. His knowledge of both the geological history of this amazing area of protected natural beauty, and the political history of how it has been preserved made the trip so much more interesting than it would have been without him.
Saturday morning it was time for me to say goodbye to Portland and get back on the train–this time for a short and very pleasant three-hour ride to Seattle, with lovely forest all along the coast. (The train was once again right on time, yay Amtrak!)
I’ll have a few days here in Seattle and environs, staying with dear friends; and one visit to a book club hosted by another friend–then it’s onto a plane and on my way back to France, with a layover in Calgary.
Stay tuned for my report from Seattle. So far it is a very interesting town!
*I’ll comment on the name of that train–(the Empire Builder?!)–in a future post, when I report on my Amtrak experience. Teaser: Mostly it was a good experience. 🙂 )
Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.
A Minnesota Welcome for A Long Way From Iowa
So, here are some highlights from the Minnesota part of my book tour:
Top row, left to right: 1. Illinois and Minneapolis contingents of cousins converged in Wisconsin, where we paid a visit to my 98-year-old Aunt Rose Ann (who has a cameo role in A Long Way From Iowa, and was an invaluable source as I worked on writing it.). 2. Dinner at a great pizza place in Excelsior with 10 of my female cousins and one brave man, James; Bottom row, left to right: 1. At the West Side Farmers Market with my brother-in-law and sister; 2. Reading aloud from A Long Way From Iowa with my sister’s help; 3. With more cousins, and my sister and niece, after the book-signing.
The very next day my sister and I were off to western Minnesota, where yet another cousin, along with my best friend from college, Ruthie, had been busy planning an event for me, at the Sunburg Community Center. What a surprise it was to me when I opened my email a few days before the event to see a Google alert informing me that this event, held in a town of 100 inhabitants, was featured in an international publication, French News Today, thanks to my cousin Darlene and her amazing skills at promotion. (Kinda funny to think of readers of French News Today trying to find out where Sunburg is. 🙂 ) She and Ruthie also brought out a good-sized crowd on a 90-degree (in October!) evening to talk about memoirs with me. We had a lively discussion; and afterward the attendees were offered delicious cookies and other tasty treats Ruthie had brought, to make the evening even more special.
I was lucky enough to be able to stay on for a few days in this area, on the shores of Norway Lake, in the cabin Ruthie’s grandfather had built, which is right next door to her home. Those few days of downtime at Norway Lake were a wonderful opportunity for me to unwind a bit after a fairly intense few weeks of traveling; catch up on some of the administrative tasks that pile up even when you’re on the road and that are easy to fall behind on; and just be in a beautiful, beloved, and familiar place, with some of my best friends in the world right next door. Heaven!
Here are a few of the scenes of quiet beauty that restore and sustain me when I find myself by the side of a lake on the edge of the prairie. Especially this lake.
Next it was back to St. Paul for a couple of days, and then on to beautiful Red Wing, Minnesota, on the Mississippi River for a book-signing at Fair Trade Books, a delightful indie bookstore; followed by visits with more cousins on the Wisconsin side of the river. After the book-signing my sister and I were able to finally bury the ashes of our brother next to the graves of our parents in a cemetery on the Wisconsin side of the river, with a few cousins gathered round. It was time to find a final resting place for him, and this is not a bad one. My cousin’s husband had prepared the site for us in advance, and we were all able to take a quiet moment to remember and honor my brother Jake.
A planned meeting with my friend Lorrie’s book club in Red Wing for the following night had to be cancelled due to concerns about Covid but I was able to see Lorrie and her husband, whom I hadn’t seen in a very long time, and spend the night with them before taking the train from Red Wing on to Winona for the next event, further down the river.
Left to right: 1) The waiting room in the Red Wing Amtrak station is a beautiful, well-maintained homage to train travel in this part of the country. 2) Rick and Zoe at Fair Trade Books in Red Wing set up a table for me for signing books for an afternoon. Every first-time visitor to this store is given a free book, chosen by Rick based on the reader’s description of their reading interests. Have you ever heard of such a thing?! (The only requirement is that upon receiving your gift book, you must say aloud, loud and clear, so everyone in the store can hear: “Books make great gifts!” 🙂 (And that is true, by the way…) 3) Here I am in Ellsworth, Wisconsin, my mom’s hometown, after visiting my Aunt Rose Ann. (If you don’t know what cheese curds are, I guess you will have to plan a trip to Wisconsin to find out.) 4) With my friends Larry and Lorrie at their home in Red Wing. Lorrie is a master quilter, and she is working on a beautiful quilt featuring Joan of Arc, one of my heroines (and hers).
Next it was on to Winona, where another very close friend of mine lives. I took the train there from Red Wing, which was a lovely hour-long ride down along the banks of the Mississippi.
The next night I had my final book event in Minnesota, at Paperbacks and Pieces, a book-and-puzzle store in Winona. For the second time in less than a week I was surprised by friends I hadn’t seen in many years who showed up at this event. This time it was my friend Paul, another friend from my college days, and his wife Catherine. They had driven more than an hour to see me; I was so touched, and what a treat it was to see their smiling faces in the crowd as I read from A Long Way From Iowa. (There was a fair amount of interest in Demystifing the French as well at this event.) We had a very lively and fun discussion; another wonderful evening.
Left: Taking questions and comments from the audience at Paperbacks and Pieces. Top right : With my friends Paul and Catherine. Bottom, left to right: Shannon of Paperbacks and Pieces; me; and my dear friend Cherie Hales.
There is no way I can adequately thank all of the many people who in the past few weeks drove long (or short) distances to see me; cooked meals for me; gave me beds to sleep in; bought my books and said nice things about them; and told their friends about these events, and about the book. (Several people have also recommended the book for their book groups to read; I am hoping there will be more of that.)
But there is one person I might all too easily forget to mention just because she is such a constant source of love and support in my life, so always there for me that it would be easy to take her love and support for granted; and I want to be sure to not forget her!
That is my sister Betsey, mi querida hermanita. In the two weeks I was in Minnesota, she picked me up at the airport (twice); drove me around the state for several of these events; and took me to the train station in St. Paul late at night when I left town. Before I had even gotten to Minnesota she had arranged for my book-signing at the West Side Farmers Market. While I was there she cooked meals for me, washed clothes, and did a hundred other kind things I can’t even remember. She even bought a bunch of my books as birthday presents for her friends! Best of all, she arranged for some time off from work while I was there so she could do some of these things, and so we could have more time together.
And that is just a fraction of the nice things she has done for me not only this month, but all my life.
In short: thank God for my sister, and muchissimas gracias TO my sister!
I arrived in Portland, Oregon yesterday, after a 36-hour train ride from St. Paul, Minnesota. An almost entirely pleasant experience, with some great opportunities to enjoy magnificent views of raw, rustic, and beautiful natural landscapes outside the big windows of the lounge (“sightseeing”) car. There’ll be more about that trip to come…stay tuned!
Janet Hulstrand is an American writer, editor, writing coach, and teacher of writing and of literature who lives in France. She is the author of Demystifying the French: How to Love Them, and Make Them Love You, and A Long Way from Iowa: From the Heartland to the Heart of France, and coauthor of Moving On: A Practical Guide to Downsizing the Family Home.
Writing from the Heart, Reading for the Road 