Book cover by Corrine Glesne and Sharon Miller
Crossing Horizons—A 1970s Odyssey by Corrine Glesne is the most recent book to emerge from a local writing group. Glesne’s travel memoir traces six years in the early 1970s, when she hitchhiked across Europe, lived on a kibbutz, and traveled overland by third-class trains and buses through Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan. She followed this period of wandering with nearly two years of archaeological work in Jerusalem, where she experienced the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and its aftermath. Her journey continued in northern Kenya, doing archaeological work out of Richard Leakey’s base camp on Lake Turkana. Eventually, she turned toward graduate school—seeking to shape those experiences into a deeper understanding of culture, learning, and connection.
Crossing Horizons is available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Glesne welcomes opportunities to speak with book or writing groups and can be reached at ceglesne@yahoo.com.
The other writers in the group have also been productive. In 2020, John Lewis Floyd brought out The Expendable, a true WWII story set in the Pacific Theater. It earned the Gold Medal in Military History from the Society of Military Writers of America and was a finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award. Frances Kirkham’s 2022 memoir—Fly Butterfly, Fly—explores her early life as a “military brat,” she is now completing a second memoir. Tony de La Torre’s inspirational A Reluctant Santa also debuted in 2022 and was named a finalist for the American Legacy Book Award; he is seeking a publisher for his latest novel, The Songs of Harvest Home. Last year, Linda Sentivanac released My Father’s Bride, an emotionally resonant novel that explores family loyalty and loss—her second novel. Barb Miller, a short story writer, has placed work in numerous publications and received several awards.
Stay tuned: the group is planning a fall event featuring readings from their books—a chance to hear these stories in the authors’ own voices.