Mary Panttaja

Illumine is a coming-of-age story set in northern California and Nepal.

It concerns George, his sister Sarah, and her husband John and explores their experience of a catastrophic illness that catapults them into a spiritual journey that carries them around the world to the mountains and cities of Nepal.

The novel is currently in its third major draft and is in the hand of a select group of readers. It will be going through at least one more draft before the process of finding an agent begins. In addition I will be exploring solutions for publishing it digitally using the potential of dynamic delivery to explore the material in new and dynamic ways.

(This could lead into a further digression about a evolving model of creating “stories” that use some dynamic technology to build fictional contexts—-but not today.)

There is more to the Illumine story. That is, there is another novel that is slowly taking shape that continues the stories of George and Sarah and the people in their lives.

The inclusion of Nepal in the story has both inspiration and practicalities in its source. I have friends from Nepal which has opened up travel there for me as well as the opportunity to stay with Nepalese families. But additionally, since I was young and first read a book on Marco Polo and then Maurice Herzog’s “Annapurna”, I have had a strong affinity for the rugged trails through the mountains of Asia. So it was natural for me to set my novel there for many reasons.

As I prepared for my first trip to Nepal, I was surprised to realize how much of my reading over my life has concerned itself with the region. I still own a small green hardback book that was my childhood exploration into the travels of Marco Polo. I know that I read Herzog’s book on his expedition to climb a 8 thousand meter peak when I was fairly young, perhaps twelve. And, of course, in my late twenties “The Snow Leopard” by Peter Matthiesen became my constant companion. (And now, I am amazed to say, I have actually looked from a distance into the land of Dolpo.) And the reading list continues. I hadn’t realized how much I had invested in reading about a land so far away—that I had not yet been compelled to visit. It was my first foray in traveling into a very foreign culture on my own—I guess that is significant.

I will be going back, hopefully this year, to extend my research for both the current and the following novel. And maybe the travel writing from my Asia travels will start to arise on one of my blogs.