It's a long story.It goes something like this: An idyllic but odd rural childhood in Northern New York—in Frederick Exley and Frederick Remington country, on Lake Ontario where the really Great Lakes pour themselves into the St. Lawrence River.
Cue montage: horses, lush hayfields, varnished family boats, black-and-white dairy cows, unsupervised daredeviltry, stacks of paperback books, groups of irritable chickens and runaway pigs.
I was hired by that storied publishing house, Farrar Straus & Giroux, where I performed various lowly editorial positions in the years when it was still a family operation.
I also juggled many part-time gigs to pay the rent. I sold my own bone marrow one month to make my student loan payment. But glamorous. Did I mention
After an undistinguished athletic youth, I started racing sailboats in my mid-20's. It's a sport that my rural background helped me enjoy: the physical challenges are matched with a shaving away of dignity and privacy, and the moments of exertion and thrill are interspersed with periods of calm reflection. Much like farming.
I often crew for my favorite skipper, my husband Jeff Linton. He's kind of a big deal, not to take my word for it...here's one of the big honors. We've won the International Lightning Class World Championships a couple of times, the Flying Scot Class North American Championships seven times, and have been able to sail in Chile, Greece, Italy, Ecuador, the UK, all over North America.
Honestly, I know it's been a lucky life so far. |