Write what you know is a quotation from Mark Twain. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? I thought about the quote as soon as I went to answer this question from my email – “What is your favorite thing to write about?” I have written science fiction novels, fantasy novels, mystery novels, and literary novels. My favorite setting is a portion of northern Minnesota. It is the “why” that takes some explaining. As I thought about the email question, I realize there was no way I could answer it in a single blog. Here are some of the categories I thought about.
1. The specific region
2. The people
3. The economy
4. The reason why people fled the area after World War II
This is just a shortlist of the reasons I write about northern Minnesota. I could go on and break down each of those reasons in the subheadings. I think the first one would be the time period I write about. Every summer I was farmed out to one or the other of my grandparents who lived in northern Minnesota. From the 1950s until I entered the Army in 1963, I knew and lived either part or full time in northern Minnesota. I remember as a child being fascinated by the people I met. There were times I did not understand their place in the community until I was an adult. There were things the adults told me I didn’t fully understand until I was an adult. Only as an adult did I come to know the difficulty of living in this area in that time period. You could say as a child I was an impartial observer of the people and loved almost every one of them. I am going to end this blog now, but I will return to this topic and break down each of the categories and perhaps even add more in additional blogs. Perhaps, you will come to love the time and region as much as I do.
