Deftly woven personal and cultural history

Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction prize, Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus deftly weaves cultural and personal history, memoir, and reportage in this fascinating look at a family and a nation's past. In January 1957, Joseph Spagna and five other young men waited to board a city bus called the Sunnyland in Tallahassee, Florida. Their plan was simple but dangerous: ride the bus together—three blacks and three whites—get arrested, and take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Fifty years later Ana Maria Spagna sets off on a journey to understand what happened and why.

Her journey complicated by the fact that her father never spoke of the Sunnyland experience and died unexpectedly when she was eleven, Spagna travels from her remote mountain home in the Pacific Northwest to contemporary Tallahassee, searching for the truth of the incident and her father's involvement. She seeks out the other bus riders, now in their seventies, and tries to make sense of their conflicting stories.

Praise for Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus

"Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus stands as a magnificent testament and tribute to the lives of many people—Ana Maria Spagna's parents, the many patriots of the Civil Rights Movement, and the citizens of communities far and wide, large and small. Her surprising story renewed my awe in the interconnectedness of all of our lives and affirmed that the current championing of hope in our country is a hope deserving of all its fervor." — Kathleen Finneran, author of The Tender Land

"By our lights, it is the perfect blend of reporting, research, memoir, and ethical implication--which makes for a compelling read. Moreover, the book's voice proves to be enduring and wise--a companion that one wants to spend more time with as [the] story unfolds." — River Teeth Literary Nonfiction

Now Go Home tells the story of how a quintessential California girl ended up earning her living in the Pacific Northwest with a crosscut saw. Ana Maria Spagna came of age in southern California in the "hot-pink eighties." By the time she turned nineteen, she had visited Disneyland thirty-seven times and was ready to hit the road. In these finely edged essays, she takes her readers along.

With candor, wit, and hard-earned wisdom, Spagna reflects on the journey that took her from a childhood in the suburbs of LA to a trail crew in the North Cascades, where she falls in love with a place and, unexpectedly, with a woman. With days spent laboring as the only woman on a trail crew and evenings in a cabin no larger than Thoreau's, she has world enough and time to wrestle with the compromises and contradictions of making "a life in the woods." From the work she does and the people she meets, she comes to see the nuances, and occasionally the humor, of big ideas like wilderness and environmentalism. And she decides this is the place she must call home.

Praise for Now Go Home

"Ana Maria Spagna slices through the sap of what brings people to the woods, whether to work or play. Her writing is remarkable in the way it scrutinizes and probes while accepting the way things are." — Spokane Spokesman Review

"In the tradition of the best essayists, Spagna uses the particulars of her own experience, adopting a new place as her home, to reach beyond and muse on the great notions of belonging, loyalty, and love." — The Olympian

"At heart, Spagna is a woman grateful for the most fundamental treasures in life: solitude, nature, friendships, and gratifying work. In the end, that's something we all can learn from" — The Douglas County News Review

About the Author

Ana Maria Spagna lives in Stehekin, Washington, and is as comfortable wielding a chain-saw as a pen. She is the author of Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter's Civil Rights Journey, winner of the 2009 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize and Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw, named a Seattle Times Best Book of 2004. Her writing on nature, work, and life in a small community appears regularly in High Country News, Mountain Gazette, Oregon Quarterly, and elsewhere. Learn more at www.anamariaspagna.com.

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