I could live inside the world of film. A matinee during the week, when the whole world is at work, one of my most favorite things. Moving images. Images so crucial to how my writing process works. Boots and a bag. Simple, basic image right? Not so much, the picture stays with me for weeks, turning over possibilities, the jumping off point.

Those boots and that bag left home with me at eighteen, the naive girl with movie star dreams. Passing them down to Harrison, the protagonist in The Vast Landscape allowed me the freedom to visit worlds I would never see. The sunburst orange, black diamond jagged beach, I see in fantasy. Picturing the house so clearly, I can feel the jagged edges of the wood, splintered fingers, precise dimensions of sand, time granules as they slip through my fingers. The Vast Landscape leads to Georgia Pine., symbiotic. One story does not exist without the other. Much like us humans, we cannot thrive without our tribe. The breathtaking ethereal, haunting girl, gazing out into reflective pools of water, somber and mysterious. Flowing locks of crimson, scream come with me. I’ll tell you a story. And, so I go willingly into the dreamstate, the image drawing me in. Into the intimate, still images, the matinee that does not end abruptly in one afternoon.