Writing this book changed my life. Changed everything. Here is my news:

.

I had not planned to write a memoir----ever. I had no desire to write about my new life in Alaska. It was way too risky. I had too much to hide. But my literary agent convinced me to transform my essay collection into a memoir. In short, to be fully present, to tell the truth, however much I could.

Finally I said yes. St. Martin’s Press of New York said yes. Then Epicenter Press said yes to the paperback. Both editions sold out.

Now, 20 years since it’s first printing, here it is — again. A brand new edition, just released. With a new original cover from my friend and artist Deborah Savage. (9 more amazing original prints are in the book as well.)

Here is why I wrote it, and why I spend my time now helping others to write their stories.

Listen to your life. see it for the fathomless mystery

          that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in 

          the excitement and gladness: touch taste, smell your 

          way to the holy and hidden heart of it because in the                      last analysis all moments are key moments,

           and life itself is grace.

——-Frederick Buechner

But grace, while always good, is not always kind. There is a fierceness and a darkness to this island life that threatens us, even our very lives at times. This kind of grace we hope to survive. Both are here in these pages.

Here’s one story from the book——about washing clothes with a wringer washer—and how our banya burned down. I recorded this two days ago inside our banya on Harvester Island.

In "A Literature of Place" Barry Lopez has written that when we attend intimately to "our own storied relationship to a place," a place comes to occupy us just as we occupy it. Through the making of this intimate book, what once was lost---my own language and the story of this island---has been returned. I am naming this island Grace, and I invite you to listen to its pain, its gladness, to its "holy and hidden heart."

And there, in its pages, I pray you too might find a way to live on your own “island of grace”?

(Giveaways below.)

May I help you—-and would you help me spread the word? I’ve got 5 new books to send out. . . . Would you share this post on your social media with a personal note and then let me know in the comments below? (Please include your email address so I can let you know you won!)

(And to my kindest friends . . . Amazon did not carry over any of the book reviews from the earlier editions. There are 0 reviews there now. If you order this book and appreciate it, and the spirit moves you to write a brief review (here)——I would be SO grateful!!!)