Author event: Carole Dagg at Griffin Bay Bookstore

The author & her writing shack...

Just got word from Nancy at Griffin Bay Bookstore about this author event this Sunday:

Author Event – The Year We Were Famous” by Carol Estby Dagg
Co-Sponsored by Griffin Bay Bookstore and the San Juan Island Library

Program and Reading from the award-winning book, The Year We Were Famous, by local author Carole Estby Dagg

Sunday, July 31, 2011 at 7 p.m.
San Juan Island Library, 1010 Guard Street, Friday Harbor

The Year We Were Famous is based on the true story of Clara Estby and her suffragist mother Helga, who walked from their farm in Mica Creek, Washington, to New York City back in 1896 in a heroic attempt to win $10,000 which would save the family’s farm and prove women could do it. Walking an average of twenty-five miles a day for 232 days, they survive blizzards and days without food and water, escape drowning in a flash flood, and meet the whole spectrum of 1890’s society: homesteaders, bandits, hobos, Native Americans, and president-elect William McKinley.

In costume and carrying a satchel full of realia, Carole Estby Dagg will share newspaper clippings, a map of the 4,000-mile route, and photo of her Great-aunt Clara and Great-grandmother Helga.

The book won the Sue Alexander Award for most promising new manuscript, and as the Publishers Weekly wrote in a starred review, “The journey in itself is amazing, but Dagg’s tender portrayal of a mother and daughter who learn to appreciate and forgive each other makes it unforgettable.”

Carole Estby Dagg is a former librarian who writes in Everett and a converted woodshed on San Juan Island.

Note from the author:

For nearly thirty years my family has spent part of the year at our cabin on Garrison Bay. We started out with a derelict cabin and an outhouse and have gradually worked our way up to a real house with indoor plumbing. More important to my writing, the woodshed—all 7’X8’ of it—has been converted to my writer’s shed where I exile myself for weeks at a time for major revisions of my work.

After over fifteen years of writing and revising, my first book was published this April by Clarion, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Although Great-aunt Clara and Great-grandmother Helga Estby’s own notes for a book about their 4,000-mile trek were destroyed, I tell their story 115 years later in The Year We Were Famous.

Griffin Bay Bookstore and the San Juan Island Library are co-sponsoring a program for all ages for The Year We Were Famous on Sunday, July 31, 7:00 pm at the San Juan Island Library. In more than just a reading, I will appear in costume with my traveling satchel full of realia and displays of news clippings, route map, family photo, and period postcards that inspired scenes. Griffin Bay Bookstore will have copies of the book available for sale and autographing.

You’ll find more information on my website and the trailer.

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