Introducing...Ron Carlson

I have been writing since my school days. My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Thornton, allowed me to put on skits with my friends which I wrote under the heavy influence of monster movies, tarzan movies, and a sense of real wonder about the world. I continued writing in college at the University of Utah and I began to see that writing would be an adventure itself. By this I mean, I had thought that writing fiction would be a clear and organized endeavor. I didn’t know what I know now, after ten books, that writing fiction is about going into the unknown each time. We start with what we know and we write from there toward what we don’t know, into the dark, building each sentence carefully so we can believe it and find out – if we stay in the room – what our stories are. In Five Skies you can see me building a world in those first forty pages, process by process. I was so glad to see Ronnie finally get that tent up –with a little help. In the book I worked forward scene by scene, and then, maybe a dozen times, I stopped and made decisions about the direction I might go next. I wanted to make each step in the book a firm and credible step. More soon. April 30, 2009. Ron Carlson

LT Governor Elizabeth Roberts on Five Skies

As the Lieutenant Governor of The Ocean State, where each of us lives closely together and the ocean breezes and tides are part of our weather forecast, the Idaho setting of Five Skies fascinated me. I have long been a reader of books set in the wide open spaces of America. Willa Cather and O Pioneers set in the plains of Nebraska, Wallace Stegner and his Pulitzer Prize winning Angle of Repose, Larry McMurtrys Lonesome Dove these are three of my favorite books and I look for literature set in the west.

Five Skies, with its wide open, rugged setting, transports the reader to a different world. There are big skies, canyons, long distances to the closest town and to family. It is such a different world that surrounds the three men in this novel, isolating them and causing them to create their own family, father, son and grandson, on the canyon rim.

I look forward to the discussions on May 9, at the Reading Across Rhode Island May Breakfast."

"Five Skies" comes alive at Fidelity Investments

If you were to put seniors from Smithfield High School, “seniors” from the Smithfield Senior Center, Fidelity Investments specialists, and Reading across Rhode Island committee members in a room together, do you know what you would get? One of the best book discussions you could imagine!

Such a gathering took place at Fidelity Investments in Smithfield on March 26. The event offered a wonderful opportunity to discuss this year’s RARI selection, Five Skies by Ron Carlson, from numerous perspectives and to ask questions that either puzzled or intrigued individual readers.

A member of the RARI committee since 2003, I loved this luncheon and discussion as they exemplified the sharing of viewpoints and feelings that we have been encouraging for years!

A quick confession: I liked Five Skies, but I’m not sure I’d say I loved it. However, I left this gathering with a deeper appreciation of the subtlety and richness of the book.

Many thanks to Fidelity Investments and to Michelle Publicover, Fidelity’s assistant manager of Public Affairs, for making possible an excellent event.

Maxine Williams