Wausau writer explores the 'Red Roads' of rural life | Lit Wisconsin
Lit Wisconsin is a sporadic series of stories in which we highlight the work writers from Wisconsin or with ties to the state. Today, we're turning the spotlight on "Red Road Redemption: Country Tales from the Heart of Wisconsin" by Pamela Fullerton of Wausau.
About the book
The first story in "Red Road Redemption: Country Tales from the Heart of Wisconsin" takes an unflinching look at the last thoughts and actions of an elderly farm woman.
The piece is titled "Going to Join Dickens," and the woman, ill and steeped in arthritic pain, is going outside to visit the barn and the horses one last time. "The old woman struggled into the first jacket at hand, a large, tan, canvas jacket with many pockets. She didn't zip it - her hands were too crippled and swollen ..."
There are nearly 50 short stories in the 246-page book, and they dig into the complications that come from living along the gravel roads of central Wisconsin. (The book's title comes from the reddish tint of so-called Marathon County granite. The crushed rock from local quarries gives the roads a distinctive color.)
The stories run from the sad to the comical, the dramatic and the nostalgic, and everything in between. Animals, especially horses and dogs, figure prominently in several of them.
Here's a list of a handful of the compelling story titles: "Eight Cows Left," "Running Out of Gas in Da' U.P.", "Farm Girl Skills," "Three Old Guys on a Bench," and "101 Great Uses for Horse Feed Bags."
The book is published by the Wisconsin Writers Association, a group founded in 1948 to help writers and authors develop their craft.
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About the author, Pamela Fullerton
Fullerton grew up a minister's daughter, in the middle of 16 siblings. She was a bright child who started college at age 15 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She would go on to earn her law degree and had careers in education at a juvenile prison and in administrative law. She also had stints as a stock car driver and a go-go dancer, according to her biography.
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She spent part of her childhood in the rural Athens area. She now lives on a farm near Wausau, where she breeds and trains Arabian and thoroughbred performance and endurance race horses. An avid writer, stories from her collection won first-, second- and third-place in the Wisconsin Writers Association's Jade Ring Contest. Her works have been published in magazines such as Wisconsin People & Ideas, Country and Modern Arabian Horse.
Fullerton is a co-producer of a documentary called "Honor in the Air," a film about her brother, Capt. Scott Alwin, a Vietnam War helicopter pilot who is believed to have logged more time in the air than any other American military member while he served five tours of duty.
Fullerton will appear at an Author's Chat event that starts at 11 a.m. Saturday at the T.B. Scott Free Library, 106 W. First St., Merrill. She'll also attend the Ridges and Rivers Book Festival, to be held April 29 at the McIntosh Memorial Library, 205 S. Rock Ave., Viroqua, and the Lakefly Writers Conference on May 6 at the Best Western Premier Waterfront Hotel and Convention Center, 1 N. Main St., Oshkosh. There will be copies of Red Road Redemption for sale at both events.
How to buy "Red Road Redemption"
The book will be available at bookstores on April 25, costing $14.95 for a paperback version, $28 for a hardcover and $5.99 for an eBook. People can preorder it online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Features reporter Keith Uhlig is based in Wausau. Contact him at 715-845-0651 or kuhlig@gannett.com. Follow him at @UhligK on Twitter and Instagram or on Facebook.
This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Wausau writer Pamela Fullerton's book delves into rural Wisconsin life
