Giving back (23/60)

Since late June I've been researching and writing a small book to celebrate skiing in the River Valley and to raise money for our small-town ski area, Black Mountain of Maine. I'm happy to announce that Words for a Mountain came out yesterday with a stunning foreword by Mexico native and friend, Monica Wood.

The back story of the book is that Black Mountain lost its funding in the spring of 2013. Faced with closure, people from town and across the skiing world rallied to begin fundraising to save the mountain. The story was featured in Powder Magazine titled, "We're In This Together."

As I wrote in the acknowledgements, "Books, like small-town ski areas, are community affairs." This little book owes a great debt to many behind-the-scenes contributors like my friend and primary reader, Gayle Sirois; my dear friend and editor extraordinaire Anne Wood (we've been working together for 35 years...whoa!); Paul Jones, Chisholm Ski Club's historian and archivist, researcher and writer; Monnie, for saying "You bet"; Chummy Broomhall, Muriel Arsenault, my ski coach Herb Adams, and my dear-dear friend Joe Sassi for serving on the 2004 Museum Committee along with Paul and me  doing the leg work for the writing at the museum plus part of the historical section in this book; photographers John Bernard, Kate Clough, and Jill Bartash plus those photographers of years gone by; and of course the hundreds upon hundreds of volunteers from the past 50+ years who have given their time, expertise, and money to nurture this community treasure.

Not to sound mystical or other-worldly (or like I'm slipping into the  black hole that could be turning 60 years old), I wrote this book because the mountain--my family, friends, and experiences--called me to write it.

Plus, writing is fun. Ya, write! ;-)

Here's a website with photos from the book.

My XC coach, ChummyBroomhall... back in the day... c. 1940