The Writer::

Sarah has been awarded a number of grants, including a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship and a Loft McKnight Fellowship. Her first novel, THESE GRANITE ISLANDS was translated to eight languages and was short-listed for France's prestigious Grand Prix de lectrices d'Elle. Her second novel THE ICE CHORUS been re-issued in paperback by ALMA BOOKS of England.  ALMA will distribute THE ICE CHORUS in English language markets wordwide, with a U.S. release in September '09.

Currently::

I've just completed VACATIONLAND, stories that link a range of characters over a span of decades to the same remote resort near the Canadian border. 

My work-in-progress, FISHING WITH RAYANNE is a romantic comedy and my first foray into both mainstream fiction and screenwriting. Camera-shy RayAnne has left the pro fishing circuit to host an all womens' fishing progam on public television. We follow her through a year of ups ad downs; the challenges of interviewing her oddball guests, distastrous dating attempts, and dealing with a high-maintenance family she sometimes wishes were normal. After the sudden death of her beloved Grandmother Dot, RayAnne's world is upended.  She finds she must re-asess her life and in the end discovers that life lived without hesitation trumps life lived by the rules, realizing what she'd been seeking was there all along. 

Soon::

SHELTER: a volume essays inspired by a corner of far Northern Minnesota where our family name is fading from local memory, and where I thought it would be romatic and fun to take on the wilderness and woodticks to build a writing retreat on forty acres of raw wilderness.. Seven years later, there is a road, two tiny cabins and an outhouse.  With no electricity or water, it's quite authentic.  SHELTER will be published by BOREALIS BOOKS in 2011.

The Life::

I've been an artist-in-residence at a number of programs here and abroad.  I started THE ICE CHORUS (see Excerpt) at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Ireland.  The following year I was a Drue Heinz Fellow at Hawthornden Castle, Scotland, where I began pulling together essays for SHELTER and stories for VACATIONLAND (see New Work) This February I was writer in residence at the Cornucopia Arts Center in Lanesboro, MN. Whenever possible I attend literary seminars, conferences, library events, etc.  In Aspen I moderated discussions at the Irish Writers' Festival in panels featuring Edna O'Brien, Jamie O'Neill, Colum McCann, Nuala O'Faolin and others.  My Irish contemporaries have been most inspiring and Irish literature has had a deep impact on me. Right now my nightstand is piled with William Trevor, Tessa Hadley and Dermot Bolger. I'm also reading the amazing English novelist, Kate Atkinson.

Sarah moderating a discussion at the Aspen Irish Writers' festival, here with Edna O'Brien, Colum McCann, Jamie O'Neill, and Nuala O'Faolin.  Not pictured are Hugo Hamilton, Polly Devlin, Gerard Donovan, and Malachy McCourt.

ON WRITING:

John Berger wrote "A child sees his world before he understands it". In my work I place characters in environments they must respond and react to, and those reactions. however small, reveal how they view and feel the world arround them, providing clues to their inner lives.

Once I plot a story and begin, the characters own it.  When they pull me along to places where I don't know what's coming next, I know I'm really writing.