With the poetry of plain speaking, Shannon Hitchcock recreates the daily drama of a vanished world.

We write by the light of every story we have ever read.

Anyone who thinks small towns are friendlier than big cities lives in a big city.

I caught a glimpse of happiness, and saw it was a bird on a branch, fixing to take wing.

We don't write what we know. We write what we wonder about.

Grandma, how old is she?" "Oh I don't know." Grandma said. "You'd have to cut off her head and count the rings in her neck.

Because nobody but a reader ever became a writer.