The Deep Forest, the Sugarhouse, and the Spirit and Soul of New England
As a farm boy who grew up in the remote hills of rural New England, I experienced the forest as a place of deep peace and profound mystery, a place filled with ancient spirits and lurking ghosts. Set back in that forest there was often a sugarhouse, a simple, roughly built place where New England farmers boiled maple sap down to its sugary essence. In my imagination all this Shakespearian boiling and bubbling captured and distilled the essence of the spirits of long-gone New Englanders, indigenous peoples as well as early settlers, who lived and died here. The maple trees from which we gathered the sap had sent their roots deep into the soil to embrace and absorb those spirits. I am now working on books in which powerful characters are determined that their families will survive the emotional and physical devastation not just of war, but the universal human flaws of violence, intolerance, and bigotry.
