Showing posts with label Answer Creek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Answer Creek. Show all posts

Sunday, June 7, 2020

An Interview with Ashley Sweeney Author of Answer Creek

I am thrilled to share an essay from Ashley Sweeney, author of Answer Creek, a novel about a woman's trip with the Donner Party.

In my review of Answer Creek (found here), I wrote, "I was swept into the novel by the beautiful, descriptive writing. Ada is a strong, appealing character who is easy to relate to. The novel gains momentum, from the early beauty of the plains and the impressive natural formations of the West to the privations and life-threatening brutality of a mountain winter. It was a joy to read."


I asked if Sweeney would write about her novel's timeless theme and message.

***

Navigating Today’s Challenges through the Lens of the Donner Party
by Ashley E. Sweeney

Little did I know when I first started researching the Donner Party four years ago that my newest novel, Answer Creek, would launch smack in the middle of a pandemic with a strict shelter in place order. No bookstore events. No library readings. No live book clubs.

Aside from the scramble to reschedule events and learn creative ways to reach the reading public, the lessons I learned—and continue to learn—from this particular narrative resonate in this Time of Coronavirus.

Many have asked why I chose to tackle one the most difficult and misunderstood narratives in American history, the 1846 ill-fated Donner-Reed westward diaspora remembered in history for one thing only: cannibalism. Rinker Buck, in his 2015 Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, calls the Donner Party “a drama of the mundane gone madly wrong.” That was my challenge. Instead of focusing on sensational and salacious details of the Donner Party saga, I concentrated on the emigrants’ collective humanity on their misguided and horrendous journey through the lens of my protagonist, 19-year-old Ada Weeks.

Nineteenth century journalist Francis Parkman said, “Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than research.” With that in mind, I immersed myself with what Parkman calls “the life and spirit of the times” by spending a month traversing more than 2,000 miles along the Oregon-California Trail from Nebraska to California. I visited countless museums, historical markers, historical societies, newspaper offices, libraries, and bookstores to ferret out information on 19th century customs, euphemisms, transportation, animal husbandry, firearms, and cuisine (if you call salt pork and beans cuisine). But I did not take the trip for my own means and ends. I needed to walk in Ada’s footsteps and ask myself at every pivotal juncture and circumstance: What Would Ada Do?

Standing in the footsteps (and original wagon ruts) of overland travelers is something akin to the sacred. On more than one occasion, my breath caught in my throat. The most memorable experience was at a remote spot off-road near South Pass, Wyoming, where I turned 360 degrees on that treeless steppe at 7,000 feet to see nothing my protagonist would not have seen 175 years ago, no roads or fence posts or buildings—just earth and sky. Ada might as well have been standing next to me kicking at the brown grass and rustling up snakes.

And there were many other remarkable moments. Taking an authentic covered wagon ride. Standing at the base of Donner Hill and wondering how hundreds of cattle and mules and horses—and wagons—could possibly crest such a steep incline. Walking portions of the Great Salt Desert in Utah. And ending at Donner Memorial State Park in Truckee, California, where the historical portion of the narrative ends. Ada was with me the whole time, whispering, nudging, coloring my experience.

Answer Creek is a fresh re-telling of a calamitous mid-19th century disaster, but it’s particularly resonant in this time of COVID-19. Reflect that the Donner Party missed the window to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains by one day due to blizzard conditions and were forced to winter over near present-day Reno, Nevada for 124 days living in appalling conditions with no food. This, after a fateful decision to take an untraveled “shortcut” that put them a month behind on the trail. At Truckee Lake, emigrants subsisted on shoe leather, blankets, and book covers before some of the entourage felt they had no other option but to eat their dead in order to survive (only 48 of the original 91 members of the entourage lived to reach their final destination near Sacramento, California).

Along the way, Ada doesn’t miss an opportunity to help others, even if she is ill equipped or inconvenienced. And through the ordeal, she evolves from a victim to become an empowered woman living on her own in the wilds of California. Far from perfect, she challenges herself to become a better version of herself because of it.

We may be inconvenienced and frustrated—and legitimately upset— navigating life through this pandemic. Quarantining and social distancing are riddled with issues. Many of us can’t work or go to school. We can’t attend worship or shop. It’s difficult to get a doctor’s appointment or a haircut. And even libraries are shuttered. I don’t diminish the tolls of this pandemic: physical, mental, emotional, and financial. They have been—and continue to be—grave. And we are reminded daily of the many fellow and sister citizens who have lost their lives.

But for the vast majority of us, the shelter in place order has been an inconvenience—nothing more. When we put it in perspective, we are not forced to eat our clothing and shoes and bedding—let alone each other—to survive. There have been snippets of joy during the pandemic as well: Zoom choral concerts, creative art projects, more time for gardening and reading. It’s as if we’ve collectively hit the “pause” button to reorganize, recalibrate, rethink.

It’s also been an opportunity to dig deeper into our own psyches, something we are often reluctant to do (for me, it was the harsh realization that I would not have not survived the Donner-Reed journey as Ada did).

It’s also brought to the forefront two important questions as resonant today as in 1846:

  • What are we doing to ease the suffering of others during this time?
  • How can our reaction to any given situation evolve from victimhood to empowerment and, more importantly, who do we want to become as a result?

I love when fiction transcends reality to confront us and convict us and change us.

Ashley E. Sweeney is the 2017 winner of the Nancy Pearl Book Award for her debut novel, Eliza Waite. Answer Creek is her second novel and she is at work on a third. Sweeney lives in the Pacific Northwest and Tucson, Arizona. 
Visit Sweeney's website
https://ashleysweeneyauthor.com/

Answer Creek
by Ashley E. Sweeney
She Writes Press
Pub Date 19 May 2020
ISBN: 9781631528446
paperback $16.95 (USD)

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Answer Creek by Ashley E. Sweeney


Ashley E. Sweeney recreates a cross-continental journey that makes social distancing and being in lock-down at home feel luxurious. Answer Creek is about endurance and survival.

Set in 1846-7 on the California-Oregon trail, the novel tells the story of Ada who travels across the continent with the Donner-Reed party.

Yes, the infamous, ill-fated, starving cannibals of history.

After the tragic death of Ada's parents, she was taken in by a Norwegian family who decide to move to California. Early in their journey, they impulsively drive their wagon into high water and are lost. Ada is next taken in by the Breen family.
Dyin's gonna get us all in the end, one way or t'other, she thinks. But dyin's not the hardest part. Livin's a lot harder than dyin' any day. ~from Answer Creek by Ashley E. Sweeney
Ada, one of the few fictional characters in the novel, has endured a lifetime of troubles over her brief nineteen years. As hardened as she is, she also has a tender heart, caring for children and women and giving medical care to the men.

The tale can rival any story of hardship I have read, from Polar explorers to concentration camps.

Staying home for two months? Running out of toilet paper, milk, and eggs?

This is nothing compared to living 124 days in an overcrowded cabin, buried in snow, starving, without heat or blankets or decent clothing.

Ada experiences the elements' extremes and the daily pain of sore feet, bug bites, sunburn, chapped skin, frozen extremities, hunger, and painful loss.

Ada survives, but what kind of life can she have, linked as she is to the cannibalism of the Donner party? Luckily, a man named Riddle takes her to Answer Creek where she can heal and find a new life.
Sometimes, it's all we can do to hold it together, she thinks. And over and through it all, we've got to forgive ourselves, and others, over and over and over again. ~from Answer Creek by Ashley E. Sweeney
I was swept into the novel by the beautiful, descriptive writing. Ada is a strong, appealing character who is easy to relate to. The novel gains momentum, from the early beauty of the plains and the impressive natural formations of the West to the privations and life-threatening brutality of mountain winter. It was a joy to read.

I received a free ebook through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Answer Creek
by Ashley E. Sweeney
She Writes Press
Pub Date 19 May 2020 
ISBN: 9781631528446
paperback $16.95 (USD)

from the publisher
From the award-winning author of Eliza Waite comes a gripping tale of adventure and survival based on the true story of the ill-fated Donner Party on their 2,200-mile trek on the Oregon–California Trail from 1846 to ’47.
Nineteen-year-old Ada Weeks confronts danger and calamity along the hazard-filled journey to California. After a fateful decision that delays the overlanders more than a month, she—along with eighty-one other members of the Donner Party—finds herself stranded at Truckee Lake on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, stuck there for the entirety of a despairing, blizzard-filled winter. Forced to eat shoe leather and blankets to survive, will Ada be able to battle the elements—and her own demons—as she envisions a new life in California?
Researched with impeccable detail and filled with imagery as wide as the western prairie, Answer Creek blends history and hearsay in an unforgettable story of challenging the limits of human endurance and experiencing the triumphant power of love.
about the author
Ashley E. Sweeney

Ashley E. Sweeney is the winner of the 2017 Nancy Pearl Book Award for her debut novel, Eliza Waite. Her much anticipated second novel, Answer Creek, will be released in May 2020. 
Ashley is a seasoned journalist, teacher, and community activist. She served as a VISTA volunteer in the late 1970s and continues community service today as a member of Soroptimist International, one of the largest women’s advocacy organizations in the world. 
Early in her career, Ashley found an outlet as a humor columnist and features editor for The Lynden Tribune in Lynden, Washington, where she garnered numerous awards for her writing. She has taught English, Journalism, English as Second Language, and GED prep at both the high school and community college levels.
A native New Yorker, Ashley is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., the Stanford Publishing Course, and City University in Seattle, Wash., where she earned a Masters of Education degree.
Ashley spends her time between La Conner, Washington and Tucson, Arizona with her husband D. Michael Barclay.