For many years I worked all day long, seven days a week, forgetting to take breaks until my husband would ask if we might share a meal; until my bladder was about to burst; until my dogs reminded me they were hungry or needed a walk; until I noticed it was dark and time to sleep.

Lynne Spriggs O’Connor – 18 June 2024

The Back Flap

Having spent ten summers on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Glacier National Park, part of her doctoral fieldwork for a PhD in Native American Art History, forty-two-year-old Lynne Spriggs thinks of Montana as her healing place. When she moves to “Big Sky Country” from the East Coast in a quest to reset her life, she has high hopes for what awaits her.

Great Falls, a farming and military town in central Montana, is not what Lynne imagined when she decided to leave city life behind. But her dream of being more connected to nature in the American West comes alive when she meets Harrison, a handsome rancher thirteen years her senior. Wary but curious, with her dog Willow by her side, she leans into the seasonal rhythms of Harrison’s hidden valley and opens her heart to a wild language that moves beyond words. In a modern world where listening is rare, Elk Love explores an intimate place where loneliness gives way to wonder, where the natural world speaks of what matters most.

About the book

What is the book about?

My memoir follows a world-weary museum curator when she leaves eastern cities behind to forge a new life in Montana. When a bereaved rancher suggests she learn about cattle, visits to his hidden mountain valley lead to night-calving in blizzards, caring for horses, listening to the foreign languages of bugling elk and dancing birds. Elk Love takes readers on her/my unlikely journey into rare and unimagined intimacies.

When did you start writing the book?

In different forms, 30 years ago, through journals.

How long did it take you to write it?

Once I focused on writing a book, it took 12 years solid, with another few of tinkering to get published.

Where did you get the idea from?

Personal experiences – those involving a lot of grace, healing, and wonder – that have been transformative in my life and that I imagined might offer inspiration to others.

Were there any parts of the book where you struggled?

Early memories of difficult family dynamics. I don’t remember much about my childhood.

What came easily?

Descriptions of the landscape and wildlife! It was pure pleasure listening and observing carefully over the years, then doing my best to transcribe the delicious voices and inherent poetry of nature.

We all know how important it is for writers to read. Are there any particular authors that have influenced how you write and, if so, how have they influenced you?

Gretel Ehrlich in the poetry of her lyrical prose, her richness of observed detail and visceral experiences in the places she loves; Edna O’Brien in her musical language, her bold and merry (unapologetic) bawdiness; Robin Wall Kimmerer in her informed celebration of our reciprocal relationship with every living being and emphasis on listening to languages not our own in nature; Joseph Campbell, Gary Snyder, Barry Lopez, Clarissa Pinkola Estés in illuminating the myths, stories, and archetypes that explore our animal nature and trace sacred journeys of the soul.

Do you have a target reader?

Women (and some men) 30-80 – perhaps lonely, perhaps introverted – who might yearn to escape the crush of their busy lives and, for a time, wander into a lost garden to explore a secret love of nature and animals. Anyone who is curious about the healing capacities of stepping outside one’s comfort zones to explore the generous wisdom of what is wild – both precious and disturbing – in us all.

About Writing

Do you have a writing process? If so can you please describe it?

My process for the past 12 years has been to show up every morning and write. For many years I worked all day long, seven days a week, forgetting to take breaks until my husband would ask if we might share a meal; until my bladder was about to burst; until my dogs reminded me they were hungry or needed a walk; until I noticed it was dark and time to sleep.

Do you outline? If so, do you do so extensively or just chapter headings and a couple of sentences?

I began by creating an extensive chronology that covered a ten-year period in my life. This became a kind of outline. Then I used details within that timeline/outline to identify events, characters, or ideas for individual vignettes. Vignettes developed their own smaller narrative arcs, which in turn, were interwoven – through the outline’s chronological progression – with the story’s larger arcs.

Do you edit as you go or wait until you’ve finished?

I tend to be wordy (these answers!) when I first put something down. I spent a long time recording every part of my story that I might possibly use, resulting in some 20,000 words of notes that became what Anne LaMott refers to as a “first shitty draft”! I made the decision to necessarily split the story in half for a first book, then began the endless work of editing and revisions. Writing is editing, editing is writing.

Do you listen to music while you write? If yes, what gets the fingers tapping?

If I listen to anything, it’s classical. Otherwise, I’m inspired by howling winds, the sound of my dogs snoring next to me, observing the way snow falls and light changes, seeing flocks of birds feed outside my window.

About Publishing

Did you submit your work to Agents?

I did, and no one bit. Most didn’t even reply.

What made you decide to go Indie, whether self-publishing or with an indie publisher? Was it a particular event or a gradual process?

After trying for several years, I heard about Brooke Warner and She Writes Press and I was very impressed. I’m a late bloomer and didn’t have a lot of interest in fussing around any longer in the hopes of maybe ever garnering the attention of corporate publishing houses or agents. I submitted my book to SWP and was accepted! Now it feels like it was meant to be: I love working with a hybrid publishing house whose values and mission are so well-aligned with my own.

Did you get your book cover professionally done or did you do it yourself?

She Writes Press designs incredible covers. The photo we used for the cover of Elk Love was what I have imagined as my cover for over a decade.

Do you have a marketing plan for the book or are you just winging it?

I am lucky and very grateful to have a publicity/marketing plan. Thank goodness for people out there who have these skills and can help people like me who don’t.

Any advice that you would like to give to other newbies considering becoming Indie authors?

She Writes Press isn’t for everyone, but they have lifted me up and empowered me to share my story in the world in ways that are nourishing, when no one else would.

End of Interview:

For more from Lynne Spriggs O’Connor visit her website and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

Get your copy of Elk Love from Amazon US or Amazon UK.