PORT ANGELES — A former Port Angeles resident is enjoying literary success later in life.
Cheryl Grey Bostrom, 71, will have her third fictional novel — “What the River Keeps” — published in a second printing.
“Generally, the publisher will do a print run and the numbers can vary, but they’ve been happy with my book,” Bostrom said. “When sales reach a certain point and that printing is almost exhausted, they put it into a second printing. It’s my understanding that most books don’t reach that point, so I’m very thankful.”
Bostrom graduated from Port Angeles High School in 1971 and is a fifth-generation Port Angeles resident.
“Our family arrived in the 1880s as part of the Puget Sound Cooperative Community,” she said.
Her novel, “What the River Keeps,” takes place in the Elwha River valley and focuses on a reclusive biologist, Hildy Nybo, who returns to her childhood home on the Elwha River to untangle the mysteries of her past.
In the novel, Nybo is offered a job as the lead project biologist on the project to restore the Elwha River following the removal of the dams.
“I was raised there and I do not remember having any deep awareness of what those dams did to the ecosystem or to the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe,” Bostrom said.
For the book, Bostrom researched the dams and spoke with tribal leadership to be sure she was representing the tribe accurately.
“I took all of this stuff to (Tribal chair) Frances Charles to make sure I was representing the tribe with honor without appropriating native culture because I’m not native,” Bostrom said. “She and others told me to proceed.”
Through the course of the book, Nybo learns forgiveness so she “is able to be free and to live a life that’s whole and healthy and happy,” Bostrom said, adding that she took inspiration from now-deceased tribal elder Ben Charles, Sr.
“He basically said, ‘We thank them for what they’ve done because we’ve learned from it,’” Bostrom said. “He always had hope those dams would fall and the fish would come back. He died before I was able to research this, but he lived to see the dams come down.”
“What the River Keeps” is a novel about healing, Bostrom said.
“This story is a story about the healing of the river, the healing of my protagonist, the healing of the tribe as the dams came down and fish returned, but it’s also about how to approach hope,” she said.
Bostrom said she always wanted to be a writer.
“I have some poems I wrote when I was just starting school, when I was 5 or 6, and they’re awful, but they’re pretty cute,” she said. “I can remember when I was 10 telling my grandmother that I wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t know the path to it.”
Bostrom earned a master’s degree in English from Washington State University, but it was more for the teaching of composition, she said. She wrote for the literary magazine in college and wrote a column for Women in Faith with ancedotal nature essays. She also writes a column for the American Scientific Affiliation’s God and Nature Magazine and has a substack called Birds in the Hand.
In her 40s, Bostrom wrote two nonfiction books.
“I was always afraid of writing fiction, but when my first grandchild was born, I had just begun to dabble with fiction and I thought, ‘I’m a woman of a certain age, and I’ve got to try this or I’ll be sad that I didn’t,’” she said.
She took a writing course and wrote a sketch about a girl who started a fire and received a great response from the class, Bostrom said. Her first fictional novel, “Sugar Birds,” grew from that sketch. It was published when Bostrom was 67.
“Who would have guessed this old lady gets to do all this fun stuff?” Bostrom said. “It’s never too late. Don’t ever let age be a limitation.”
Bostrom’s books are available at Port Book and News and Odyssey Bookshop in Port Angeles as well as Pacific Mist Books in Sequim. They also are available through Bostrom’s website, cherylbostrom.com.
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Reporter Emily Hanson can be reached by email at emily.hanson@peninsuladailynews.com.
