Catherine Urdahl

Catherine Urdahl
As a child, I was shy and scared — of oth­er kids, dogs, almost any­thing out­side my fence. My par­ents enrolled me in preschool, hop­ing I’d blos­som. I refused to get out of the car. I had every­thing I need­ed at home, includ­ing a mom who loved read­ing to me. My first book mem­o­ry is Three Bed­time Sto­ries: The Three Lit­tle Kit­tens, The Three Lit­tle Pigs, The Three Bears, illus­trat­ed by Garth Williams.
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Candice Ransom

Charlotte's Web
Books swept me away, one after the oth­er, this way and that; I made end­less vows accord­ing to their lights, for I believed them. (Annie Dil­lard,  An Amer­i­can Child­hood) It’s hard to say which came first: did I adopt traits of the main char­ac­ter in cer­tain books I read, or did I grav­i­tate towards those books because I already had those traits?… more

A Story for the Ages

The Rabbits' Wedding
For the past two years my hus­band and I have had the good for­tune to spend the wan­ing days of sum­mer in Door Coun­ty, Wis­con­sin. There we have dis­cov­ered a vibrant arts com­mu­ni­ty. A boun­ty of the­atre, music, and fine arts is there for the picking. This year, as I scanned the pos­si­bil­i­ties for our vis­it, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in the Penin­su­la Play­ers’ Mid­west pre­mière of a new play by Ken­neth Jones called Alaba­ma Sto­ry.… more