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If you look closely at a map of the coast of Maine, you will notice the 'fingers' of granite points thrusting downward into the Atlantic Ocean. Those points were caused by a mighty glacier that scraped across Maine eons ago. "The rocky coast of Maine" is just that. I remember scraping my legs on barnacles when I swam off the three round rocks standing side by side along the shore of the cottage where I grew up during the summers. Back then, I couldn't be a year-rounder. It is admirable that families have done it for generations.

The fingers of rock, ledge, and stubborn forests determined to plant themselves down to where they can get the best view shelter the people more determined than the trees and the rocks to live there and make a living from the sea. Some of the families settled there a couple hundred years back. Their enclaves are self-contained, self-reliant, and somewhat isolated, although the advent of the Internet and cell towers has affected them, like anyone else. Now, someone hauling all day can dock the boat, walk up the ramp from the wharf, and sit down with a PBR and Game of Thrones.

I've had people (teachers in particular) worry about Florine when she quits high school in my first book, Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea. During the 1960s, when I was a townie in Bath, Maine (Long Reach - its original name) and going to what we then called Junior High, several groups of kids from the surrounding rural areas where farming and fishing were the order of the day, came and went. It was not surprising to lose fellow students whenever they could legally leave school. They expected to be farmers or fishermen, or fisher or farmer wives. That Florine quit school would not have been shocking, although disappointing.

There are also questions about why I haven't written more about the political turmoil that was happening during the 1960s. The reason is that, from inside Florine's head, what is going on in her world is enough. The events outside her little village are dimly noted and have little personal effect on her or her loved ones. In Written on My Heart, the Vietnam war comes into play through Glen's joining the army. Personal events often trump what's going on in the larger scheme.

I am sitting at a table watching the New Meadows River in West Bath roll by while the wind blows about 50 mph bursts. I am comfortable in a year-round house with heat, running water, the necessities. I can glance outside and take in the romance of it all instead of judging the roughness of the waters should I choose to take the boat out in this weather. The residents see it differently. It's life, it's making a living in a tough, dangerous way, and it's damn hard work. It's living life out loud, as Emile Zola may have put it.

I'm teaching two courses at St. Joseph's College in Maine this coming semester. I'm re-reading The Tain for my Irish Literature course. I had forgotten what a complex rich story this was. The Tain, for those who have not read it, is an grand Epic on a par with Beowolf. It's the story of Cuchullain, the Hound of Ulster, part super-hero, all legend. I am looking forward to introducing him to my students.

I went to school in Ireland one summer, a long while back. I have Irish blood, and so I thought I knew Ireland. I couldn't wait to see the castles, and cottages, the charm of the place. I had been in love with it all years. But I was in love with something I knew nothing about and so I was disconcerted to find out that, although Ireland is indeed beautiful, it was not what I had expected to find. At this point in its history, the Republic of Ireland was going through hard economic times, and I was riding up the road in the middle of it.

As I rode the bus in from Shannon Airport, a bus that would take me to university in Galway City, I noted the ragged haircut of the man in front of me, the old coat and faded kerchief on a woman across from me. No one was singing and dancing. No one was smiling. Everyone was deep into their own journeys. As I peered out the window, I saw cottages which may have been charming once, deserted and decaying by the side of the road. The grayness of the foggy day pierced my heart. The fields were as green as advertised, but they were overshadowed by my own blues.

Where was the Ireland of Lucky Charms? Where was the Ireland of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling? The castles and fairies and leprechauns in my head dissipated as I rode that bus up the coast. For a grumpy moment, I resented the place entirely and thought to myself, "It's going to be a long summer".

But as we jounced along, it occurred to me that this ancient place had existed far, far back from the rise swell of the Irish American. It had its own language and its own triumphs and tragedies. It had its own moral code and values. I had always been proud of the Irish part of me, but until I went to Ireland, I did not understand that Ireland's culture and history has little to do with green beer on St. Patrick's Day, (although they do like their pints, and so did I). And I had an epiphany. I resolved to fall in love with it as it was, for its reality, not my fantasy. And I did. That summer remains one of the most enlightening and wonderful times of my life.

That's what reading The Tain is bringing back to me—the knowledge that although we contain the DNA of our ancestors, as Americans, most of us are immigrants with trace memories of forty shades of green. Where we came from is entirely different, and to have been able to travel back to honor the truths, both good and terrible, of that ancestral landscape was a privilege. I would never understood the depth of their history and their literature. The Tain is no mere misty fairy tale, and neither is Ireland.

In February, my book, Written on My Heart, will be published by Plume. It's a sequel to Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea, it's a stand-alone. What is a stand-alone you ask? (I did.) It's a book that can either be read on its own merit, or as the sequel to the first book. I'd never written a stand-alone. It's a delicate balance between need-to-know backstory and the present tale.

I'm very conscious, as a writer, to walk a fine line between the two. I know that I've read books stuck in so much backstory that it affects the rhythm of the story and bogs down the action, and so I worked hard (with the help of an amazing editor from Plume, Kate Napolitano) to fill in a history quickly, yet comprehensively. It took some time, but I'm pleased with the result.

As I sit in my apartment looking out at the blue sky of a late November day, getting ready to do work on another manuscript, I'm grateful for the experience of working on Written on My Heart. It was a bit like deciding to have another child because everything about the first child has been so easy. And then that second baby turns out to be a heller from the get-go,as well as a marvelous, fascinating human being! I wouldn't change my second 'baby' for the world.

Daylight Saving Time kicked in last night, and so we have an extra hour to notice how early the dark will come to bear. I, for one, am ambivalent about it. Let winter come. I'm looking forward to it.

I have a book coming out in February. The name of it is Written on My Heart: A Novel. It's the sequel to Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea, but it's also a stand-alone novel, in case the first book (which is great, by the way, if I must say so, myself) hasn't been read, yet.

The book brings Florine, Bud, Dottie, and Glen into early adulthood along with the challenges that phase of their lives brings to them all.

I look forward to sharing it with readers. I look forward to reading it aloud and bringing to life. I am eager to see what readers think. This winter will be busy. I'm grateful to have this opportunity and I hope you all will join me in welcoming back some beloved characters, or in getting to know them.

I think you'll like them and I think you'll be surprised.

My black cat, Tulie and I continue on with the adventure that has been 2015. She's sleeping beside me on an old futon belonging to a beloved friend who has rented me her upstairs apartment in the West End of Portland. Tulie and I moved back from western South Dakota in May. My family is here, and it was important to show up. My parents are both 88 years old and are living at home. My sister was their caretaker during a a particularly harsh winter in Maine. The weather in South Dakota last winter was not so harsh, but life took a few interesting turns that prompted me to drive the 2100 miles back home. My beloved dog died. My partner and I came to a stalemate. One of my dearest friends in Maine was diagnosed with cancer.

So, I loaded up the car and Tulie and I headed East. Life in some ways, has accelerated and it's hard to emotionally keep up. This summer, my parents have declined, some. It turns out they truly need another caretaker. My irreplaceable friend passed in late July. I still talk to my partner every day. It's complicated and will always be that way, but he makes me laugh, think, and wonder about the complexities of love between human beings.

Things haven't been easy but we don't get that guarantee, do we? We sign up for this journey knowing that it will be bumpy along the way. As we get older, it gets bumpier. But the guideposts remain steady, for the most part. A beautiful mid-August morning is beckoning me outside. Classical music is whispering to me from the radio. A black cat is curled up beside me, a cat who came to me via the South Dakota mining town of Lead (pronounced Leed) as a tough, six-week old scrub of a feline. So, she and I forge on.

I look forward to the publication of my book, which is coming out in 2016 is is titled Written on My Heart. Plume is the publisher (thank you, Plume!). It can be read on its own, or as a sequel to my book, Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea. The protagonist is my feisty Florine Gilham, and the setting is the coast of Maine.

It's good to be near water again. Any time I want, I can walk out my door and walk down the hill to see the Atlantic. At night, I sleep with the ocean to the left of me. It's comforting and familiar and beautiful. But to my right, and far from being forgotten, somewhere back West, stand the mysterious and stunning Black Hills of South Dakota.