Taken by the Sea: A Book Launch Event

Local writers Sarah Conover & Paul Lindholdt will celebrate their new books. Conover’s latest discusses the loss of her family in the Bermuda Triangle; Lindholdt’s discusses the ethics of travel.

Local writers Sarah Conover and Paul Lindholdt will share, discuss, and sign their new books at the Shadle Park Library. Sarah Conover’s new title is Set Adrift, A Mystery and a Memoir: My Family’s Disappearance in the Bermuda Triangle, and Paul Lindholdt’s latest is Interrogating Travel: Guidance from a Reluctant Tourist. Local independent bookstore Wishing Tree Books will be on hand to sell copies.

Set Adrift: In January, 1958, one of the most renowned sailing families of the Eastern Seaboard vanished during a freak storm in the Bermuda Triangle. The youngest of two orphans, Sarah Conover grew up never knowing her parents and grandparents—those who were lost. Set Adrift, Conover’s hybrid memoir, weaves her life story with interviews, official Coast Guard reports, and the national media’s investigation of her family’s fate to chart her life story, the mystery of her family’s disappearance, and the healing of tragedy’s grief.

This is Sarah Conover’s 8th book; her press kit can be found at the bottom of this page. Additionally, the History Channel is creating an hour-episode about her family’s vanishing to air as part of their Into the Bermuda Triangle series this fall and will be trying to find the family’s yacht this summer. 

Interrogating Travel: Travelers may be taken by the sea to places faraway for pleasure, or taken never to return, as happened to Paul Lindholdt’s son, a story Interrogating Travel tells. Travel also causes slow violence to the planet, via carbon spewed by planes, and to Indigenous people via encroachments on their lands. One antidote the book prescribes is to reinvestigate local environs by hiking, kayaking, birdwatching, and by looking closely at the web of life.

Paul Lindholdt is the recipient of a Washington State Book Award. This is his 10th book and his press kit can be found here.  

Author Biographies:

Sarah Conover holds an BA in religious studies from the University of Colorado, and an MFA in creative writing from Eastern Washington University. She is a feature writer and columnist for Tricycle Magazine: The Buddhist Review. Ms. Conover was a recipient of Washington State’s Grants for Artist’s Projects and writing fellowships from the Ucross Foundation in Clearmont, Wyoming, and the Willapa Bay Artist Residence Program in Oysterville, Washington. Her poetry, essays and interviews have been published in a variety of literary magazines and anthologies. She is the author of six books on world wisdom traditions and spirituality published by Skinner House Books and Turner Publishing. 

Paul Lindholdt grew up on the Salish Sea but divides his time between Spokane and Sandpoint, Idaho. He teaches literature and environmental studies at Eastern Washington University. His work has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets, the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Washington Center for the Book. He earned a Washington State Book Award for his ecological memoir, In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau.