Karen Fisher is the award-winning author of A Sudden Country, which won the Washington State Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. A former wilderness guide and homebuilder, she now works full-time as a writer, coach, and librettist from her home on Lopez Island, WA. Fisher is currently bringing her first libretto, Precipice, to the stage while working on the next two books of a literary trilogy about the end – or beginning – of the world.

Our interviewer Michael N. McGregor is a Seattle-based author whose book Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax was a finalist for a Washington State Book Award. After growing up in Seattle, he earned a BA in journalism at the University of Oregon and an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University. A former journalist and professor of creative writing, he curates the website writingthenorthwest.com. You can learn more about him and his work, including his latest book, An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life, and his new novel, The Last Grand Tour, at michaelnmcgregor.com.