Ephemeral Summer

A few years ago I spent my ephemeral summer writing my first novel.

There is nothing like the feeling of accomplishing something; especially when it is a labor of love. That is how I feel about my novel Ephemeral Summer. So I was especially pleased when I received an email from a women's book club in Twin Cities of Minnesota who are coming to the Finger Lakes region and want to meet and speak with me about my novel.

Ephemeral Summer is a coming of age story about a young woman named Emalee who loses both parents die when she is 15. After the tragedy she is sent to live with her Aunt Audrey who summers at the family camp on Canandaigua Lake in Upstate New York. Emalee is beset with the usual problems of a young woman, but her familial relationships and 'lake friends' make her life even more trying. In her twentieth year she falls in love with a young intellectual philosopher named Stuart, whom she can't seem to get over even after years away from him and the lake setting where they met.

Although this is a love story, Ephemeral Summer is also about the wonders of the natural world. Starting in the Finger Lakes region and ending there, this story takes the reader from the shores of Canandaigua, Seneca, and Erie, to the Canadian wilderness where Emalee finds herself tracking Moose as part of a research project in Algonquin Provincial Park.

I wrote and edited this book (with the help of many people) over the course of a few years. My purpose was to educate about this great place - the Finger Lakes - in which we live; and to entertain. I hope I have done both. And I hope you will enjoy reading Ephemeral Summer.

Tracking Stories in the Algonquin Wilderness

Jack Pine
by Tom Thomson
Source: Wikimedia

Writing placed-based literature is a great experience because there are always stories embedded in the culture of an area that a writer can use as a springboard.

When I wrote Ephemeral Summer I placed my college-age protagonist, Emalee, in settings that were familiar to me. She attends colleges in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York because I know the area well. However, like most college-age students she moves around, and in the last chapter, she visits the Canadian wilderness to assist a fellow graduate student track moose in Algonquin Provincial Park in Canada.  


Although I had stayed in Algonquin twice myself during graduate school (tracking moose), my research on Algonquin went beyond the ecological setting and into the realm of art. While conducting my research I was surfing the Internet for information about the Northern Lights to include in the novel, and stumbled upon the artwork of Tom Thomson, (1877-1917) an artist from the early 1900s who painted landscapes in Algonquin.

The Northern Lights by Tom Thompson

Thomson first visited Algonquin in 1912 and fell in love with the place. He stayed, found jobs as a ranger, firefighter and any other occupation that the woods would allow, and painted in his spare time. His paintings are considered the forerunner of a movement of painters called The Group of Seven: a group of Canadian landscape painters who spent considerable time painting in Algonquin from the 1920s-1930s.

As I delved into his story I found parallels to my plot. There is an accidental death by drowning in my story Ephemeral Summer, and Thomson likewise drowned under mysterious circumstances. In 1917, at age 40, he went out canoeing and was found dead a week later. Foul play was suspected but never confirmed.

Like many artists, Thomson did not make a lot of money on his works. Although he did have a patron, and some of his works sold, he became more popular after his death.

And that is what is most intriguing about Thomson: his drive to create art whether it sold or not. His story folded neatly into my narrative for Ephemeral Summer. Indeed, for many artists, who create for art's sake, because they feel compelled.