PORT TOWNSEND — When is an elk a caribou?
When did the Wallowa Mountains move to the upper Midwest?
And why should new authors accept the title and cover art the publisher chooses, even if it’s not correct?
Craig Lesley addressed these questions when he spoke Thursday night about writing his first novel, Winterkill, set in the Wallowa Mountains of Eastern Oregon.
This year’s Port Townsend Library Community Read selection, the story is rooted in the landscape and filled with native people and fauna — salmon, wolves and elk — despite the fact that the cover art on the hardback edition is a block print of caribou, while the animals in the painting used for the paperback cover are deer.
“I guess you could call them little elk-lets,” said Lesley, a native of The Dalles, Ore., and a lifelong Pacific Northwest resident.
End of PT Read
The author’s appearance at the Port Townsend High School auditorium was the culmination of this year’s monthlong Port Townsend Community Read program, which promotes everyone reading and discussing the same book.
Lesley talked about how he wrote Winterkill and what happened, both expected and unexpected, after it was published in 1984.
“I didn’t expect so many people from Eastern Oregon to come up and say they were the model for Ass-Out Jones,” Lesley said, referring to a character in the book.
“There was a model, but it wasn’t one of these guys.”
Short stories to novel
Lesley said he started writing Winterkill when an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt saw his short stories and asked him to turn them into a full-length novel.
Because he was teaching a full schedule of college classes, Lesley worked on the novel between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m.
During the late nights of writing, the main character, a rodeo cowboy named Danny Kachiah, became real to him and talked.
“When I got up [from my desk], he’d say, ‘Don’t leave me in this cheap motel,’” Lesley said.
Lesley said he worked for four years through 12 revisions, writing on legal pads, notebooks and a Smith Corona typewriter.
Caribou, not elk
When he saw an advance copy, Lesley pointed out to the editors, who were in Boston, that the animals on the cover were caribou, not elk.
The title also was not his choice, but as a new author, he came to realize changing either wouldn’t be a good idea.
“If it doesn’t sell, they could say, ‘Well, it would have if you’d used the title and cover art we chose,’” Lesley told the audience.
The book received awards and was well-received on the Nez Perce reservation, Lesley said.
Asking how he found the voice of his Native American characters, Lesley said his mother worked on Indian reservations when he was growing up; many of his classmates were Native American.
Lesley said he also drew on the voices of relatives of his first wife, who was Native American, and the relatives of his adopted son.
Celilo Falls
That a generation of people don’t recognize the name of Celilo Falls, the traditional native fishing place on the Columbia River, was one of the things that compelled him to write the story, Lesley said.
Donna Nockleby, who brought her copy of Winterkill for Lesley to sign, told him she grew up in Hood River, Ore., and used to visit Celilo Falls before the water from the dam backed over them.
When her Kala Point book group discussed Winterkill, she brought Ray Atkinson’s book of photographs to show what the falls once looked like.
Spoke to students
Lesley also spoke to Chris Pierson’s junior English class at Port Townsend High School earlier Thursday and said the students impressed him with their intelligent questions.
Jody Glaubman, a librarian who accompanied him, said the author connected with the students, talking about his childhood as the son of a single mother and being poor in a small town.
“That was the way he grew up,” Glaubman said.
“He writes about real people, working people, people who work because they are looking for a way to pay the rent.”
Groups packed
Theresa Percy, Port Townsend Library director, said discussion groups on the novel had attracted more people than in the past and were the best yet.
Almost 100 people showed up to see the documentary at the Rose Theatre on the Pendleton Roundup, Percy said, and an archery demonstration put on by the Wapiti Bowmen of Port Angeles drew more than 75 people.
Lesley’s talk filled almost all the seats in the high school auditorium, which has a capacity of 291. People arrived early to get a good seat.
“After seven years of Community Read, people are getting into it,” Percy said.
“It’s taking on a life of its own.”
All programs in the Community Read program are free and this year were funded by the Friends of the Port Townsend Library, librarian Keith Darrock said.
Bill Maxwell, former president of the Port Townsend Library board, introduced Lesley, noting that the author’s connection to Port Townsend goes back to 1980, when Lesley attended a Centrum Writers’ Workshop.
There, author and poet Raymond Carver read Lesley’s stories and encouraged him to write more.
“He was a great help to me,” Lesley said.
After the presentation, Lesley drew the winning tickets for a raffle that supports the program.
Eve Lachlan won first prize, a Pendleton blanket. Phyllis Markworth won an autographed copy of the hardback version of Winterkill, complete with caribou on the dust jacket.
“You can show people the elk that are not elk,” Lesley told her.
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Jennifer Jackson is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. To contact her, email jjackson@olypen.com.
