Linda Crew - LETTERS FROM WAKE ROBIN FARM

A California boy to his bones, John Crew marries Sheila Gadsden at Yosemite in 1985.

John checks out Herb's greenhouse on a recent visit to Wake Robin Farm.

John with daughters Simone, left, and Erica, at our daughter Mary's wedding party.

Erica, the face of the future, taken the day of her dad's memorial service.

Hayden Homes Amphitheater in Bend, Oregon

Men on the left listening to the women in charge on the right. I am deliberately omitting identifying info and links as tree people are very private! They're concerned about keeping the forest growing, not how many hits they get on a website!

Being around tree people again reminded me of why I had wanted to write my novel Family Trees in the first place!

My first baby's nursery buddy at Good Samaritan Hospital in Corvallis.

Brag alert, but I can't help it! Our grandson is amazing! He made this lunch for us yesterday all by himself. And I'm not just talking about his experimental recipe for stuffing zuchinni, I'm talking about starting all these vegetables in the greenhouse last spring, planting and harvesting the produce entirely on his own. The only thing he didn't do was pour my wine!

Jennifer Rodriguez, 2nd Grade teacher at Adams Elementary. Thanks to her and all the amazing teachers who have worked so hard to guide the kids through these difficult times.

One day after school, Nolan climbed into my car and said it didn't matter what Grampa and I had been thinking he might do at the farm that day. "I just found out it's going to be my teacher's birthday and I have to start making her a present!"

The timeless joy of children pitting themselves against the tides.

....and dawn on September 12th, the opportunity to get up and keep trying.

Lori Gottleib

Glennon Doyle with her wife, soccer star Abby Wambaugh

Anyone considering going on psych drugs would be well-advised to read this book by Robert Whitaker beforehand.

Accidental Addict Youtube Trailer

Our beloved Corvallis independent bookstore, Grass Roots, has copies of Family Trees NOW.

No idea what my granddaughter is thinking here, but she looks like what I feel!

Grass Roots Books

From the front yard by the wedding plaque. We normally can't see the river at all as it meanders along through deep cut banks toward the Willamette.

Print or ebook editions available NOW through BookBaby, click below.

Print edition available February 1st through your favorite local bookseller or Amazon.

Plunkett Creek cabin, Fall 2020

Being in lockdown gave me the incentive to finish the novel I began in 2009, which turns out to feel, to me, like a sort of love letter to my community of Benton County, Oregon. Click here for more.

Yoga room view, October 27, 2020.

Accidental Addict Youtube Trailer

COMING SOON!

The Big Man. Right after ripping off his mask back at the White House. I'll bet Putin's really impressed!!!

Who's advice would you prefer, Trump's or this brain surgeon's?

Wedding in Yangshuo Youtube book trailer

This photo, taken just hours before the record-breaking east wind blasted in the smoke that smothered the Willamette Valley, represents my last memory of blue sky.

It turned out the entire West Coast was experiencing this amazing while alarming orange sky phenomenon.

At the garden gate.

She recognized the spirit medallion I sewed in jewels onto the bodice

The princess investigates her sleeping quarters

1987, my mother with her only granddaughter, my Mary, mother of "Elsa"

Trump seems to surround himself with Barbie doll type women. I like that Mary Trump is not of that mold.

Sometimes the next right thing for me to do these days during the lockdown is something as simple as making sure the house has fresh flowers from the garden.

A Heart for Any Fate Youtube Trailer

"A magnificent, heartfelt historical novel of the strong and determined families who settled the West, with an ending that will surely bring you to tears. Highly recommended!" Graham Salisbury, author of Under the Blood-Red Sun, winner of the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction.

"Engagingly written, A Heart for Any Fate belongs with the best historical fiction on the American West." William G. Robbins, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of History, Oregon State University.

Wedding in Yangshuo Youtube book trailer

I don't want to take down this sign. Maybe I won't. I'm still voting for her.

This New York Times photo was taken the day after Elizabeth Warren suspended her Presidential campaign. I find it comforting, somehow, seeing her at her Cambridge home with her sweet husband Bruce, who has always sounded a lot to me like my husband Herb.

Karl Marlantas
Photo by Devon Marlantes

Fire on the Wind Youtube Trailer

My Little Women dolls. Amy, in front, was my Christmas present in the fourth grade. Her sisters and Marmee joined her as my adult indulgence. They watch me do yoga in my special room.

The 1926 edition I was lucky enough to have received from my husband's family. They owned books; we went to the library.

A recent portrait of Margaret with her beautiful family done by Holly Peterson of The Ball Studio.

Nekomah Creek on Amazon

"It's the best chapter book!"

Nolan Crew, age 5

Local newspaper coverage when Nekomah Creek came out. Surely most people realize that writers never ever sit around reading their books to their family like this, right?

This kid is never happier than when he's working on a project.

Me and Bob Corcoran at the Corvallis High 50th Class Reunion, August, 2019

Me and Bobby, side by side in the Garfield 4th grade class picture, 1961.

Would you have the nerve to talk to somebody this cool? The yearbook says, "An experienced three-year letterman, Bob provided the courage and leadership that served to inspire his teammates to peak performance."

Yearbook photo of me with my theatre buddy, Gary Beach.

My story. Not telling anybody else how to live, just saying how it went for me.

Cathy took this picture of Herb and me on my Uncle Bill's salboat out on the Willamette in May of 1970. She reports I was already talking about being determined to get this guy.

Cathy Saeger

Original cover of Someday I'll Laugh About This as published by Delacorte Press, Random House, in 1990.

Many of my scam calls name this book, I'm sure because this edition is taken to be self-published. Almost thirty years after publication, this book is a best-seller in only one place, Mari's Books in Yachats, Oregon, where the story is set.

Accidental Addict Youtube trailer

After telling in lucid prose how she become an Accidental Addict, Linda Crew provides a prescription that all of medicine should heed: "A doctor should never prescribe a drug without an understanding of what it takes to get off of that drug, and a willingness to help his patient accomplish this." One hopes that everyone who prescribes benzodiazepines and opioid painkillers will read this compelling memoir.
Robert Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic

I hope this timely book gets widely read. Linda Crew's experience has been shared by millions of Americans and many have lost their lives. The medical community has accidentally created an epidemic of addiction by overprescribing narcotics, and now everyone, including prescribers, needs to know how easily these drugs can destroy lives.
Andrew Kolodny, MD—Executive Director, Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing

Accidental Addict is an excruciatingly tender, necessary work, wonderfully written, so compelling, so honest. Incredibly personal and filled with love. The many, many people who don't even know this is happening to them will thank Linda Crew over and over.
Jane Kirkpatrick, Homestead

I found myself instantly drawn into her story, and her witty delivery kept me engaged. Definitely a wake-up call for all of us about the perils of painkiller and anti-anxiety medication use, and the way doctors have carelessly over-prescribed these drugs in the last few decades. A fascinating (and scary) read that won't be easy to forget.
Margot Vance-Borland, LPC

Linda Crew clearly has a gift. Her memoir about the unrecognized epidemic of protracted withdrawal illnesses caused by benzodiazepines and other psychiatric drugs is written like a novel and, like a brilliant piece of fiction, gets under your skin…an important piece of literature that may help educate many.
Monica Cassani, author and editor of Beyond Meds, prize-winning web magazine

Linda Crew's Accidental Addict is a must read for all medical students across America, and physicians who treat pain will find this book very useful as they rethink the way they are prescribing narcotics....a superb book on an enormous medical issue of our time.
Mark Rampton, M.D., 1996 Oregon Family Doctor of the Year, team physician with Haiti Health Initiative

Dr. Leon Speroff, award-winning Ob-Gyn and infertility specialist, subject of a charming OPB interview on his love of playing soft-ball in his eighties.

My woods today, walking to bring down PTSD induced BP spikes.

Elizabeth Warren. Nevertheless, she persisted.

Laura Delano's story in The New Yorker by Rachel Aviv

Accidental Addict Youtube trailer

Wedding in Yangshuo Youtube book trailer

SreyRam Kuy, who once ran around our farm playing with my son, Miles, is now an award-winning surgeon in Houston, with a personal interest in serving veterans and medically underserved patients.

SreyRam Kuy with her older sister, SreyReath, and my son Miles, circa 1983.

Thirty-five years later, SreyRam is an award-winning surgeon in Houston, with a personal interest in serving veterans and medically underserved patients.

Jakelin Caal Maquin

Wedding in Yangshuo Youtube book trailer

My husband, one of the good ones, who tends to choke up at scenes of migrants marching with their children to our southern border, and mutters about wanting to just send down busses to bring them all up. Refugees from Southeast Asia helped us on our farm early on; the mother of our precious grandsons is from China. The Mexicans around here are the hardest working people we know. We are pro-immigrant!

Two-year-old grandson Emery preparing to plant his own special tree.

Watch for fresh new green grass on this spot!

July, 1986, Neskowin, Oregon

My father, Warren Welch, with my mother and me and my daughter, Mary, at their 50th wedding celebration. He died there at Black Butte Ranch two days later, of a heart attack.

My darling grandson Nolan, apparently in possession of the gene of feverish creativity.

Summer of 1974. I couldn't wait to rip into this place.

Keziah Daum, looking good in a Chinese qipao she found in a Salt Lake City vintage shop.

Wedding in Yangshuo Youtube book trailer

Wedding in Yangshuo on Amazon

My mother and I wearing qipaos made in a shop in Yangshuo, China, for us as a gift from my daughter-in-law's mother. Were we being culturally inappropriate to wear these to the courthouse wedding here in Oregon?

Helping Grampa make apple cider

Emma Gonzales

The painting that caught my eye.

Jennifer Diehl's website

I had so much fun looking at all the paintings on Jennifer Diehl's website. She's incredibly versatile in her subject matter. She even had a painting of a soccer game.

Published by Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999

I got a lot of points for coming up with this ancient Barbie hat and sacrificing it to fit the Mama Bunny, just like in the book.

Wedding in Yangshuo YouTube trailer

Wedding in Yangshuo

Buy directly from BookBaby.

Wedding in Yangshuo on Amazon

Accidental Addict YouTube book trailer

Brides of Eden YouTube Trailer

Check out my newly posted 2-minute trailer

Hey, Donald, this is what love and actually "being there" for people looks like. San Juan Mayor Yulin Cruz, comforting a nursing home resident in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria's direct hit on Puerto Rico.

Fire on the Wind, Amazon Kindle edition

Fire on the Wind is now available as part of Amazon Select

For a short Fire on the Wind book trailer, click here

Three-and-a-half-year-old grandson Nolan Crew made it special by cutting and making the "eclipse" bouquets a day ahead. He even hauled the flowers up from the garden in the trailer of his little John Deere tractor.

With grandsons Nolan and Emery and niece Mallory from Vancouver, B.C., at our eclipse eve gathering.

We were surprised to come out that morning and find the sky full of private jets trying to land at our tiny airport a few miles south.

Brides of Eden page on goodreads

Check out ratings and reviews from readers.

Brides of Eden ebook

Amazon Kindle Edition

LETTERS FROM WAKE ROBIN FARM

Wedding in Yangshuo

January 6, 2018

Tags: writers' memoirs, travel in China, Yangshuo, weddings in China

Happy New Year! My computer crashed for good just before Christmas, so I have been unable to post updates until now.

Wedding in Yangshuo is now available in both paperback and ebook formats from all the various on-line platforms. A sale directly from BookBaby directs the portion of the price which would have gone to Amazon directly to me, which is nice, although, at the moment, Amazon is offering my title for a low sales price.

If you're lucky enough to live in Corvallis, Oregon, you can walk right into our wonderful independent, Grass Roots Books, and pick up a copy off the new paperbacks table. If you don't see it, please ask.

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Quick Links

Family Trees: a Novel of the Northwest

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Wedding in Yangshuo: a Memoir Love, Language, and the Journey of a Lifetime to the Heart of China

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