https://www.lizstroud.com/testing-1 daily 0.75 2020-05-20 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c5a514d65019f01a2cb2be5/1562687033752-GYBC5N9IBWBEWSB8ZXJ2/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Testing 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c5a514d65019f01a2cb2be5/1562687042835-DITPZLPAZ9VB5SVD9Y3U/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Testing 1 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c5a514d65019f01a2cb2be5/1562687024353-YI2JTTGZH5NEL2JDX35X/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Testing 1 https://www.lizstroud.com/about daily 0.75 2020-05-19 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589813112191-JR2R4QR2IQPI8V4BIA1A/Headshot+copy+offset.jpg About My Story. The first story I remember writing was in grade school. The subject: my “friend” the opossum, a beastly looking creature who for some reason chose a magnolia tree by our back porch for his daytime naps. I can still see him, hanging there by his tail, nose pointing to the ground, like some furry indicator that my life would at times feel inverted—and that this upside-down viewpoint would eventually come to feel perfectly normal. Not long after that elementary-school story earned me an A (did it, tho?), my parents packed a small U-Haul with a few of our possessions and the cat, and we moved to Mississippi and set up housekeeping on a live-together church community. My dad was dealing with (figurative) post-war demons and this group was, at the time, all about casting out what they believed were literal ones. I spent my teen years in this church group, married into it, and began raising a family. I missed a lot in the seventies, living the way we did, and to this day I still have pop culture gaps (ask me about the time I got put on the spot at karaoke and didn’t know the tune to Ride, Sally, Ride), but I don’t regret the way I grew up. I mean, I still rock at milking goats, hauling water, and transplanting fields full of tiny lettuce seedlings. But as we all know, life is all about change. So, at the age of twenty-four, I found myself moving off the community, toddler and baby in arms. I was back in “normal” society—or as we called it, the “world.” I probably felt more upside-down during this period than ever before. But the human spirit is nothing if not resilient, and eventually (following lots of therapy) I began to feel at home in my new life. Follow many years—and untold changes—later, I had the good fortune to land in a job that allowed me to tap into both my love of writing and my deep experience with groups. I became an Organizational Change Manager, which is essentially a role that helps companies achieve needed-but-difficult change. It’s all about the people, see, and growing up as I did, in a family of three-hundred, I get people. But as much as I love my work, that story stuff just kept knocking at my door. I wanted to write a novel. And I wanted to show, after living in and leaving the kind of group called by those outside of it a cult—what that life was like. What was wonderful about it, and what was absolutely not. This was a tough book for my debut into fiction. The story is deeply personal to me, and at times I felt like I was scraping at my soul. My main character, Micah, is braver than I am. But I finally decided that if she could do what she did in the story, I could do this. I could write this book, using my own name, and speak my truth. The story is fiction, but informed in many ways by real life. I hope you enjoy it. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589828136212-J6LBNR8N91VQZWV7FAGQ/A141.jpg About - The Back Porch of our House in Virginia. The back porch of our house in Virginia. The opossum that started my literary career hung out in that little magnolia tree in the corner. https://www.lizstroud.com/home daily 1.0 2024-01-18 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1590013874446-2OGJGT6S12GQLG30NRNC/Headshot%2Bcopy%2Boffset.jpg Home https://www.lizstroud.com/contact daily 0.75 2020-07-06 https://www.lizstroud.com/books daily 0.75 2020-07-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1590098745951-78L34XOBPUMIZCQHQ8B9/IMG_6491.jpg Books - Researching the novel was a story in and of itself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589921514667-REG5LJ192XDV3YKKYUHF/River.jpg Books - The River. In many ways, this story is my love letter to the Peace River region. When I started looking for a setting for the novel, I had vague memories of visiting, as a teen, some gorgeous river valley in Canada. I recalled my friend and I went for a horseback ride near Hudson’s Hope; from a high ridge, we were awed by a sweeping view of the valley below. In a subdued tone, our guides told us the whole valley would one day be flooded to make way for a reservoir. At the time, it was incomprehensible to me. Still is. I wanted to know if the flooding had actually taken place. My husband is a game kind of guy; he agreed to a research trip to the area. I fell back in love with it immediately: the Peace River has that effect on people. He did, too. Over the next few years, we made three trips to the Peace River. I wanted the story to have as much historical, textural, and geographical accuracy as possible. And besides, the Peace just kept drawing us back. It’s that kind of place. At the time of this writing, a third and highly controversial dam—Site C—is under construction on the Peace River. While many in the region welcome the economic benefits of the dam, others, myself included, mourn the loss of the unparalleled beauty of what remains of the upper Peace River. Many fear the environmental impact of this new dam will be as bad as—or worse than—the original devastation my character Sam witnesses as he takes his final flight over the Peace. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589921694960-R3NMXUTLOFGXK10GT14N/Vic+with+guitar.jpg Books - The People. It’s nigh impossible to adequately describe the people of Hudson’s Hope and the surrounding area. They’re fiercely independent, yet bound together by that particular force that grows out of years of shared history in a remote locale—while adapting rapidly to forced and irreversible change. They’ve had to adjust their livelihoods, their culture, and in many cases, their land and homes, all in the name of progress. Some support it, some fight it. All are among the most caring and personable people I’ve ever met. And some of them informed characters in my story. Vic Gouldie (pictured, left) hosted us at his remote trapline cabin and showed us firsthand the life of a Canadian trapper. Parts of Vic crept into the philosophy and actions of the trapper in my story. I’m indebted to Vic and others who shared so much of their time and history with me. Read more about these incredible people in my newsletter. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589922010196-EVBWCRS4M8NS7IJQ7O19/Dam+sign.jpg Books - The Dam. The construction of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam had a profound and lasting effect on the geography and people of the upper Peace Valley region. Its impacts were both positive and negative, as a newly created exhibit in the Visitor Centre so eloquently portrays. BENEATH THE PEACE is structured around the timeline of the dam, and although there was room in the novel for only a fraction of its fascinating history, I’m so pleased to be able to recount at least some of the details surrounding this incredible undertaking. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589922110515-09NVKVP1EQYO3EEOG4XM/Bridge.jpg Books - The Bridge. Yep, it’s a real bridge, used heavily by the Allied Forces during World War II. It has been called “the bridge that defeated Hitler.” I first landed on the idea of using a Bailey to cross the dangerous gorge in my story while sitting on my sofa in the Midwest, researching bridges that could be assembled without heavy machinery. I loved the idea of using a Bailey…but how could I get one in the hands of my characters, living as they did in an isolated stretch of the Canadian Rockies? This was a stumbling block for awhile, as I wanted everything in the story to be plausible. Then, on our first trip to the area, my husband and I were rewarded when we stumbled onto a real Bailey—this one—only a short distance from the story setting. Further digging revealed many Baileys—surplus from the war—were stockpiled in Canada. One was indeed used in construction of the W.A.C. Bennett dam, and extra parts could have been laying around. And yes, my river consultant told me, the parts could have been riverboated in (during high water) from Prince George. Bingo. My characters had their bridge. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5ebdbcdacf1870600a746277/1589922270804-B7BL76IDQOIN9K909D7T/Screen+Shot+2020-05-17+at+6.53.25+PM.png Books - The Era. My incredible freelance editor, Alexandra Shelley, was the one who first pointed out, in her inimitably gentle-but-pointed style, that if I was going to set a novel in the late 60’s, I should consider how my characters were influenced by the tumult of the decade. When I dug into the research, I was amazed to find that some of the more notable events of the era fit my timeline to a tee—including the infamous riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5c5a514d65019f01a2cb2be5/1580248124087-6KUJZQVE3E1CR3LSWXQS/20140301_Trade-151_0124-copy.jpg Books - The Faith. Since I wanted to show the power of belief to inform choice, it made sense to set the story against a backdrop of clearly drawn—if unusual—faith. The paradigm of the group in the story, the fictitious community at Zion, is based in part on research I did into various isolated religious communities, and in part on the beliefs of the community I was raised in. https://www.lizstroud.com/deleted-scene-chinook daily 0.75 2020-12-15