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AI: Well, so starting to bring this more up toward the present, you, you did resettle here in Seattle, and eventually your son's health improved, thankfully. And in the meantime, you were starting to -- you were readjusting to being back here, and then, and doing some writing. You were taking the articles that you had written during your travel, and forming them into a book.

PJ: Right.

AI: Tell me a little bit about how that process of readjusting and also preparing for the book.

PJ: Well, it was hard. You know, it was the first time in my life that I had not worked. I felt very isolated, I think I was going through a lot of postpartum depression, and I knew that I couldn't do the work I was doing before, 'cause it involved travel, and I couldn't travel. My son was still very, very sick. And so I decided I was gonna write this book. 'Cause I had all this material, and I knew nothing about writing a book, and so I went to Elliott Bay, and I got a book called, How to Write a Book. [Laughs] Or How to Publish a Book, or something like that. How to Write a Book Proposal, that's what it was. How to Write a Book Proposal. And so I thought, well, I can do this, it's like marketing. [Laughs] And so I did all this research and I went to Seal Press, which is a women's, independent women's press, which I was really interested in publishing with, kind of an independent press, and never thought that anything -- I went, actually, because the editor was a friend of a friend, and she had just agreed to just talk to me about the process. And, but I really didn't think -- they had published some pretty well-known writers, including Barbara Kingsolver and some other, you know, so I just didn't think that I was gonna -- so I went and said, "I've got this list of kind of smaller presses, and do you know of any others to approach?" And Faith looked at me and said, "Well, why aren't you talking to us?" And I said, "Well, are you interested?" [Laughs] "I've never published anything before, and I've never really... I don't know." And she said, "Well, could I see some of the stuff? 'Cause I'm really interested." And so I sent her some of my articles, and she loved them. She called me about a month later and she said, "We'd really like to publish the book." And I said, "Oh." And she said, "Well, have you sent it anywhere else?" And I said, "No, I was just getting ready to do that." And she said, "Well, how do you feel about not sending it anywhere and just signing a contract with us?" And I, I said, "Great." [Laughs] Didn't ask about an advance, didn't ask, you know, didn't, nothing. I mean, I was just so thrilled that they were gonna publish my book. And they did a great job, they really did a great job. But about forty percent of the book is kind of the stuff I had written with a lot of changes, and then the rest of it is either new or just changed so dramatically that it's really not what it was before. [Laughs]

AI: Well, it must have been a great feeling of satisfaction to see it finally come out, which, it was 2000?

PJ: It was published in hardcover in March of 2000 and then in paperback the next year. And it's still out in paperback and it's actually being used in some college courses now, anthropology and world affairs and cross-cultural affairs and things like that.

AI: Well, I'm, I'm so glad personally that it was published. I got a lot out of reading it myself.

PJ: Thank you.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.