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Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, Ore. Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Author returns to Valley roots in first novel
By Darcy Wallace
IVN Staff Writer
Former Illinois Valley
resident Tess Hardwick
might have left the Valley,
but it seems the Valley
never truly left Hardwick.
On Saturday, April
23, Hardwick released her
first novel “Riversong”, its
setting loosely based on the
Illinois Valley.
Her family moved
to Selma when she was
just five years old. When
not playing in the forest
or biking up and down
neighborhood streets with
her brothers, Hardwick was
attending the old Selma
elementary school.
“This was a great place
to grow up,” Hardwick
said. “Everybody knew
you and people took care of
each other. There were no
homeless people because
somebody took them in.
People found a way to help
each other out.”
As a child, Hardwick
loved
school
despite
being chased around the
playground as one of eight
girls in a class of about 30.
At Lorna Byrne Middle
School, she met a favorite
teacher, Jack Dwyer. Her
own father taught in Valley
schools from the 1970s to
the early ‘90s.
Upon graduation, she
didn’t stick around, but
changed pace with college
in L.A.
Hardwick said she
studied drama at the
University of Southern
California; though she
loved
writing
scripts
and enjoyed acting, the
atmosphere in L.A. wasn’t
for her.
“I
moved
to
Seattle because I was
really homesick for the
Northwest,”
Hardwick
said. “But I enjoyed the
larger city and didn’t think I
wanted to live anyplace too
small. I got a job at a high-
tech firm as a receptionist,
acting on nights and
weekends.”
For several years,
Hardwick
said
she
continued moving up
through the professional
chain, getting promoted
and staying involved with
theater companies when
she could.
In 2000, she wrote
her first full-length play
called My Lady’s Hand,
earning a first place award
for new work at the Burien
Theater near Seattle. A
“voracious reader” in
childhood according to her
blog, Hardwick only later
realized she had a talent
for writing. Someday, she
hoped to write a novel of
her own.
After several years
working as a vice president
in the human resources
field, there was a certain
point when she realized it
wasn’t the life she wanted.
“I
was
pretty
miserable,” Hardwick said.
“I was working full-time
and commuting a couple
hours a day. I had a little
baby and hated being away
from her. But when I ended
up getting pregnant with
my second, I didn’t go back
to work.”
Hardwick said her
husband and family agreed
to uproot themselves from
the bigger city and move
to Snoqualmie, Wash., to
downsize and simplify.
After
20
years
wanting to write a book,
Hardwick finally had the
chance to do it. She worked
on the manuscript while
raising her child and made
a goal to finish it by her
40th birthday.
“Finally it’s coming
true and we’ve worked
so hard,” Hardwick said,
crediting her husband for
his support. “When he
got married to me I was a
professional and making
all this money, and then I
decided I need to do this
writing thing. It changed
everything.”
Hardwick
said
“Riversong” is loosely
based on where she grew
up but is more of a general
representation of several
Southern Oregon small
towns. She visits her
parents, who still live in
Selma, about twice per
year.
“We were just there
[in February 2011],” she
said. “The change for me
is that I don’t know anyone
anymore. All the young
people moved away. I can’t
think of anyone I know
who still lives there, and it
makes me sad to think of it
because we loved growing
up there.”
Though the scenery
resembles
Southern
Oregon, the plot and
characters are Hardwick’s
own. She said the premise
was an exploration of what
might happen when some
people decide to reinvent
their town.
In the story, the
protagonist Lee Tucker
finds one morning that her
husband has committed
suicide, leaving her in debt
to a loan shark. All she has
is a run-down house of her
mother’s in a Southern
Oregon town.
Seeking a chance
to start over and bounce
back from her hardships,
Tucker decides to fix up
her mother’s house and
also open a new destination
restaurant, Riversong.
“Part of the theme is
kind of a love letter to these
beautiful towns that are
dying,” Hardwick said. “I
didn’t intend it to be a love
story but one character,
Tommy, wanted to take
over the keyboard.”
In her blog, Hardwick
worries at some points on
how the novel might affect
those she grew up with, or
those living in the Valley.
Would they be offended
by her descriptions? Would
they read more into it than
she intended?
“I gave [Tucker] a
really big problem and
she had to figure out how
to get out of it,” Hardwick
continued. “The town
itself is more general,
but the description of the
landscape and the physical
terrain, that’s all Southern
Oregon.”
Hardwick now lives
in Snoqualmie, Wash., a
different small town than
those in the Valley but with
its own similarities. She
walks everywhere; school,
the library, the grocery
store or the gym. In one
of her visits to the grocery
store, someone called out
to Hardwick, “Oh, you’re
the writer!”
“It’s a little like
living in Cave Junction
(Courtesy photo, Illinois Valley News)
again where everybody
knew me,” Hardwick said.
“We’ve been really happy Tess Hardwick’s first novel “Riversong” is loosely based on the
Illinois Valley where she graduated from IVHS.
here.”
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