Lynne Spriggs O'Connor
Author Interview - Lynne Spriggs O'Connor
Author of Elk Love: A Montana Memoir
A world-weary museum curator 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 languages of bugling elk and dancing birds. Elk Love describes her wild journey into rare and unimagined intimacies.
Author Interview - Lynne Spriggs O'Connor
Author I draw inspiration from:
Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Places
Author Interview - Lynne Spriggs O'Connor | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
In a comfortable chair or couch by a crackling wood fire with dogs nearby, while it's snowing outside.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
Phyllis in my book: Elk Love: A Montana Memoir. She describes an elevator ride when a man standing behind her was quietly irritated because one of the long pheasant feathers in her hat was tickling his face. Unbeknownst to her, he got more and more annoyed, until everyone in the elevator suddenly broke out laughing. Phyllis was sassy and loved making people laugh. Sounds like a fun ride to me.
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
One year after leaving everything behind and moving to Montana, when the unexpected love story of my lifetime began to unfold
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
Hardback is the work of art, the collector's version. But I would never dog-ear or highlight the pages of a hardback, and they're heavy when you move. Paperback: lightweight, easy to work with, travel with, and fun to give away. Ebook: probably great, if I owned a Kindle. Audiobook: when the narrator is right, there's nothing better than someone telling you a good story. Perfect for long trips! Downside: you can't go back to underline or re-read favorite passages.
The last book I read:
Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain. I found this book resonant on so many levels. It feels as if my own life story in Elk Love is a perfect allegory of everything she observes about our alchemical journeys of transforming pain into the transcendent grace of creativity, beauty, gratitude, and love.
Author Interview - Lynne Spriggs O'Connor | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
On a day to day basis, I spend much more (too much!) time on the computer. But I'm always jotting down notes on bits of paper, the backs of envelopes or paper napkins. Pico Iyer taught me the vital importance of capturing key details right then and there of anything you might want to remember and write about later. Otherwise, they're lost forever. Even when she's not writing, a writer is always writing.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass. She brilliantly captures the natural world's beauty in her work and her writing, she celebrates its deep wisdom and describes a reciprocal relationship with all the inhabitants of our living world that is so nourishing and joyful! As a lover of the natural world, scholar, artist, and writer myself, I'd relish the perspective her scientific knowledge brings to things. As a student of Native art and culture in my own life journey, I'd deeply appreciate her ancestral wisdom as a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Her teaching style and her vibrant stories tell me she is a kind and patient soul who deeply cares and celebrates life.
Author Interview - Lynne Spriggs O'Connor | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
A biologist? A visual artist - painter or filmmaker? A singer or musician?
Favorite decade in fashion history:
Meryl Streep's outfits of the early 1900's worn in Karen Blixen's autobiographical book-to-film Out of Africa.
Place I’d most like to travel:
Returning to the Western Isles of Scotland, There is a deep quiet beauty there - in the land and the people - that feels incredibly comforting to me. Scotland is near and dear, as the place my husband and I first spoke of our love for one another. I feel the connection of Scottish blood in my ancestry.
My signature drink:
Anything with ginger, lime, and mint, and probably a mocktail, since alcohol makes me sleepy.
Favorite artist:
For someone whose professional life was largely devoted to learning and studying various art forms, working with artists, and curating exhibitions, this question is impossible to answer! Too many to list!
Number one on my bucket list:
I'm living my bucket list! Spending as much time as possible coming to know and love individual animals, beautiful places in nature, and kind people.
Find more from the author:
WEBSITE: https://lynneoconnorauthor.com
INSTAGRAM: @lynnesoconnor
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/lynneoconnorauthor; https://www.facebook.com/lynne.spriggs.oconnor/;
BLOGS: https://finchnetwork.org/?s=finches+of+cloudland
About Lynne Spriggs O'Connor:
Author Interview - Lynne Spriggs O'Connor
Lynne Spriggs O’Connor spent ten consecutive summers on northern Montana’s Blackfeet Indian Reservation while doing fieldwork for her Ph.D. in Native American Art History from Columbia University. After moving to Montana in her early forties, she curated a three-year project called Bison: American Icon, a major permanent exhibit of Native American art for the C.M. Russell Museum on bison in the Northern Plains. O’Connor previously curated exhibitions of folk and self-taught art at the High Museum in Atlanta. She also worked in the film industry as Production Coordinator for Spalding Gray and Jonathan Demme on the iconic Swimming to Cambodia. For the past fifteen years, she and her husband have lived on a cattle ranch in an isolated mountain valley in northeastern Montana, where her life centers on writing, animals, and family. Elk Love is her first memoir.
