Tahoe Writers: Putting Passion to the Page
Writing a book is a creative passion. It requires carving out chunks of time away from work, family, and playing outside. After hundreds of hours of mental gymnastics, there is little chance of great financial success — but writers are still drawn to the challenge. Getting your words in print is an opportunity to show the world what is going on inside your noggin, a true expression of who you are. There are lots of writers with Tahoe connections who have made that giant leap to publication. Here are five recent examples:
America Through Time, Geology of the Lake Tahoe Basin by David Antonucci
David Antonucci has lived in Tahoe for over 50 years and has a passion for studying and telling the tale of the nature and history of this beautiful place. He has written about the 1960 Winter Olympics, Mark Twain’s adventures in Tahoe, and his recent book, Environmental History of Lake Tahoe, provided a detailed history of how Lake Tahoe went from wild wilderness to the international tourist destination it is now.
Antonucci’s latest book is America Through Time, Geology of the Lake Tahoe Basin: History and Features. The book “describes in detail, but in plain language, the forces and processes that created Lake Tahoe and its watershed,” said Antonucci. He sought to provide answers to the question that many visitors to Lake Tahoe ask: “What am I looking at?”
Antonucci says a primary goal of this book is to “dispel a lot of the myths and misinformation about the geology in a way that the public can read and understand. I wrote this mainly because there is a general lack of information on the geology of Lake Tahoe. And the internet is full of misinformation about how the lake was formed.”
Bright Eyes by Bridey Heidel
For longtime South Tahoe High School English teacher Bridey Heidel, writing began as an emotional escape from her difficult childhood. Her diary was a place for her to write “about what was happening in my life. Trying to make sense of the stories that you can’t say out loud,” she says. Bright Eyes is her story of being “tethered to a mom that makes the world’s worst decisions and how I survived that. How I used survival skills to figure out how to leave her behind and cut all ties.”
Heidel moved to Tahoe in second grade in 1978 and graduated from the same high school where she now teaches. But in between she changed schools 22 times living in places like Juneau, Alaska, and Austin, Nevada, as her mother moved from place to place.
While she lived off and on in Tahoe, it was certainly not an idyllic paradise. “We lived in a hotel in the dangerous side of town. You think everybody is here skiing and doing all these wonderful things, but that is not the case for a lot of people,” Heidel said. “That experience has been helpful to me as a teacher. I know how to teach those kids and talk about it. I use those skills every day with kids with foster care and on the outs. I notice red flags that other people might not notice.”
Bright Eyes, which she began writing in 2019 after meeting her lifelong idols — the band members of Duran, Duran — is a raw, powerful, and, in the end, cathartic story. While it was a tough write, she has been happy to discover while participating in book events that her writing has been helpful to those who have dealt with similar childhoods of neglect and abuse. A key point of the book, and perhaps the impetus for her to write it, is why is it so hard to break away from an abusive or addicted parent. This is the challenging situation that many teens face. She tried to leave her mom for many years before finally finding the courage to set herself free.
Mating Habits of Fireflies by Cathee St. Clair
A renowned local artist and now writer, Cathee St. Clair has lived in Truckee since 1988. She is best known in Truckee/North Tahoe for her exquisitely painted eggs and for introducing children to art through Arts for the Schools. St. Clair has also been working for many years on her recently published novel, Mating Habits of Fireflies.
The settings for St. Clair’s book are Italy and the San Francisco Bay Area during the Vietnam War and intertwines nature and the raw reality of what was going on in the world. The lead characters are a young artist who is a college student, “who processes life through her art, to make sense of life,” as St. Clair put it, as well as a young musician, with whom she quickly develops a deep connection. But then he draws the worst possible draft lottery number and faces being sent to Vietnam.
“The story is loosely based on my life, the things I experienced in that time,” she said. It started as a series of poems and morphed into a memoir, “but being plagued with a wild imagination and a poor memory, I decided to turn it into fiction, and write it in the third person to get more distance. It was then that the characters took over.”
St. Clair thrice attended what was then known as the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and worked with several editors and the Jibboom Street Writers before finally completing the book. “I had to mature a lot before I could tell this story,” she said. “It’s a story about perception and the healing power of art.”
All that hard work was worth it, as Mating Habits of Fireflies is a 2024 semifinalist in the Booklife Prize in Fiction and is featured as a Booklife Best of 2024.
The Laws Field Guide to Sierra Birds by John Muir Laws
True aficionados of the natural wonders of the Sierra Nevada often turn to John Muir Laws’ The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada. In its 350 pages, there are over 2,000 drawings and paintings providing the essential information you need to identify everything from mushrooms to pine trees, beetles to birds, frogs to coyotes.
The popular field guide took Laws over six years to produce. Now, 20 years after the bird book’s original publication, a significantly revised edition of The Laws Field Guide to Sierra Birds has been published.
What has changed in the new edition? “There were a bunch of birds that were not in the original book, and my drawing skills have improved,” Laws said. “Drawing is a skill that you develop and the more you draw the better you get. In twenty years of pencil miles, my ability to render the birds has gotten better.”
In addition, some of the birds’ names have changed and Laws added new tips on how to spot birds more easily.
“I’ve always had a love of nature and natural history,” he said.
His dad was a bird watcher and taught him all about the birds. In addition to his love of nature, Laws also has a passion for the fine art of creating little masterpieces depicting every species, which is clearly evident in any of his books. How does Laws create his life-like renditions?
“I use photographs and study skins of preserved animals, but when I’m out in the field I’m constantly drawing the animals I see,” he said. “Drawing from life in the field is the best way to get a feeling for the bird.”
Voices from Tahoe by Barbara Weinetz
While Barbara Weinetz now lives in Wisconsin, her memories of life in Tahoe between the late 1970s and 2006 remain vivid. Known at the time as Barbara Olsen, she ran the PDQ market in Tahoma. When she left the Sierra, “for a long time I thought about writing a book about my experiences in Tahoe,” Weinetz said. Upon retiring, she finally found the time to do it and really enjoyed the experience.
“The more you write about somewhere you live, the more you remember the little things that made it special,” she said. Readers have told her the book helps them to remember fondly what it was like when they first came to Tahoe.
Voices from Tahoe is a mystery/suspense novel about a recently divorced woman who moves to Tahoe’s West Shore to run a market in the 1970s. It tells the tale of her new life learning to love the mountains and how three men come into her life through love, revenge, and mysterious circumstances. Part of the mystery is connected with Weinetz’s feeling that a spirit resides in the building, shared by other people who have worked at the Tahoma Market. Longtime Tahoma resident Ed Miller said Voices from Tahoe is “lots of fun and you may be able to identify some of the thinly veiled locals.”
Tengo un Feeling by Maria Ferres-Amat
Tengo un Feeling is a bilingual tale about emotions, the idea for which was sparked by author Maria Ferres-Amat’s experience as a bilingual teacher and storyteller. She was inspired to create a bilingual book — not by simply mixing words, but by crafting a full story in two languages.
“Readers can seamlessly move between the languages, learning new words while immersing themselves in the story,” Ferres-Amat said. “When I tell stories, I often translate books on the spot, which made me realize how valuable it would be to have a book that’s already written in both languages. It’s a practical and fun tool for families and educators to encourage language learning while sharing a meaningful story.”
The story follows Arti on a journey as she navigates a day filled with emotions. From the joy of creativity to the frustration of challenges, this enchanting tale invites readers to explore and understand their feelings in both English and Spanish.
Ferres-Amat, who moved from Barcelona and for many years lived in Tahoe/Truckee, now resides in the Nevada City area but Tahoe will always hold a special place in her heart.
“Moving from Barcelona to Tahoe it was both exciting and challenging, but the warmth of the community made it a place where I could grow and thrive,” she said. “Tahoe is also where my journey as a bilingual creative teacher began, at a wonderful local preschool called Papoose. That experience allowed me to connect with families and truly made Tahoe feel like home.”
