Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness

In Potluck, Ana Maria Spagna explores the deep connection of people and place. Her affectionate, wry, and wise writings journey from Tijuana to a California beach to Utah's canyon country—and, always, back to Stehekin, the sparsely populated valley in the North Cascades she calls home.

Often, Potluck homes in on the everyday gatherings that, over time, define a community—a makeshift wedding, an art gallery opening, a farewell potluck, a work party, a campfire, a political caucus, a funeral. Spagna doesn't shy away from what pushes people apart—pettiness, prejudice, and idiosyncrasy—and she marvels at what brings people together, and what holds them there.

Spagna asks the universal question, "What connects us?" In Potluck, we discover, again and again, the gift of community—easy and uneasy, deep and enduring and essential.

Praise

"From one of the country's most-remote hamlets comes one of the West's most perceptive and lyrical literary voices." — Mountain Gazette

"So many writers romanticize rural life, and so few address its true difficulties and rewards. Ana Maria Spagna never flinches: In this wry, wise, and beautifully written collection of essays, she takes a deep, honest look at her life in a small community, and teaches all of us something about ourselves and our neighbors." — High Country News

"Ana Maria Spagna brings something new and important to the American tradition of writing about life at the edge of wilderness. Her stories are shaped by chainsaws and courage, but also by potlucks, unexpected love, hand-held radio calls, and the crazy sustaining friendships that create a community from everybody who washes up at the place where the river meets the trail… rueful, funny, suspenseful, insightful, and altogether true." — Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Wild Comfort

About the Author

Ana Maria Spagna's latest release, Potluck: Community at the Edge of Wilderness, was a 2011 PNBA finalist. Her Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter’s Civil Rights Journey won River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, and her Now Go Home: Wilderness, Belonging, and the Crosscut Saw was named a Seattle Times Best Book. Ana Maria appears as a Notable Essayist in Best American Essays 2010, and her writing on nature, work, and life in a small community appears regularly in High Country News, Mountain Gazette, Oregon Quarterly, and elsewhere. Ana Maria lives in Stehekin, Washington and teaches in the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program.

Buy a SIGNED copy of Potluck: Community on the Edge of Wilderness - $18.95