First Wheel in Town.
This will be the first in a series of stories following a group of friends in the fictitious town of Chetzemoka—a city inspired by my own town of Port Townsend. Here's the insider's scoop on where various details of the story came from:
Manuscript pages from the story.
Here are photos of some of the things around town that inspired scenes in the story:
Urtica dioica: stinging nettles.
Colaptes auratus: Red shafted Northern flicker—the woodpecker.
"Women Shopping for Baskets on the Beach, Port Townsend, ca. 1895"
Image source and more information about the photo: http://digitalcollections.lib.washington.edu/cdm/ref/collection/loc/id/54
Listen to a KUOW piece about fishing treaty rights in the 19th-century (Gabriel was interviewed for this piece—you'll hear his voice on the recording)
http://kuow.org/post/schelangen-also-right
For more about how those treaties affected the 20th-century and continue to have social and environmental implications now, check out Gabriel's thesis: http://depts.washington.edu/civilr/fish-ins.htm
Venus Slipper orchids
When I recently wrote these beautiful flowers into the wedding scene of my novella, I had read about them but never actually seen them in the wild before. Then, just a couple weeks after I finished the story, Gabriel and I went cycling in the Olympic Rain Forest, along a Rails to Trails path following a former railroad route. I was delighted beyond words when I saw the wild orchids I'd dreamed and written about growing by the side of the trail.
Some Port Townsend landmarks which inspired scenes in First Wheel In Town:
Post Office
The Hastings Building
I borrowed her surname and occupation for my character, although Kitty and the other characters in First Wheel in Town are completely fictitious.