“Pioneer Girl: The Revised Texts” Review, and a Peek into the “Wilder Weather” Research Process
Sometimes, the work of writing gets done in a Holiday Inn Express in Amarillo, Texas. Before I entered the comfort and safety of Jennifer Louden’s Taos Writers’ Retreat in late October, I took the long road. I hadn’t been away from home and family for over a year and a half. My brain needed a portal into the retreat week — something physical to mark the line between everyday life and entering the retreat space. An extra day of isolation and independence turned out to be exactly the right decision.
Just one woman on the road, I lugged two very heavy suitcases with me at each stop (and a large snack bag, because of course). The large suitcase was filled with ten days’ worth of soft and cozy clothes, comfortable shoes, and toiletries. The benign-looking carry-on sized suitcase masked an even heavier load: stacks of books and notebooks, in case I needed a brief moment of research or inspiration while I was writing. At the invitation of the South Dakota Historical Society Press, I had browsed an advance readers’ copy of the new Pioneer Girl: The Revised Texts. Even so, I danced a jig when my preordered hard copy arrived at my doorstep the day before I left for the writing retreat. That book and its predecessor, Pioneer Girl: The Annotated Autobiography, may have amassed half the weight of…
