Local Authors at the GPL: Annie Chappell

The Greenfield Public Library welcomes local author Annie Chappell on Thursday, February 29,  at 3 pm in the Conference Room, to discuss her book  Away Up the North Fork: A Girl’s Search for Home in the Wilderness.

In the 1970s, a girl dreams of a life where the world is simple, like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods. If she can get to that place, then the trouble she faces with alcohol, sex abuse and the sorrow of the modern-day issues will disappear. Home in Denver for break from boarding school in the Spring of 1973, she meets a mountain man, a Viet Nam vet, traveling through town, on his way back to his cabin on the Canadian border in Montana. In October, she runs away from boarding school in the East to find him, so he can teach her the wild ways.

When the plan fails, she goes back to school to graduate, but corresponds with him for the rest of the school year, and after graduation, with her parents’ blessing, makes her way to Montana from her Colorado home to live with him. Homesteading with an older man in the wilderness presents a set of challenges, pushing her to face her own strengths, fears, and the relationship with her parents and home.

Annie Chappell is a writer, artist, and  passionate environmental advocate. On occasion she writes articles for the Green Living section of her local paper. Annie lives in a small town in Western Massachusetts with her husband.

Copies of her book will be available for purchase.

This program, generously sponsored by the Friends of the Greenfield Public Library,  is free and open to the public.