A Few Things About Wonder

I am drawn to what people bring with them when they have to start over, by choice or fate. Photographs, secrets, rituals, superstitions, but mostly their stories. It’s why I was drawn to early twentieth-century San Francisco, a city filled with catastrophe, desire, spectacle, and people putting one foot in front of another to begin again.

I think wonder has less to do with innocence than attention. An ability to remain curious despite disappointment, grief or fear. It’s what I saw in all my work. Before writing fiction, I worked as a librarian in Washington, D.C., an organizer for trauma and PTSD clients, a house parent for Vietnamese refugee boys, and a program coordinator at a women’s counseling and career center.

The year I spent in San Francisco for course work, I found Teany’s address, took photographs of mansions where I imagined Robert Harquin and Daniel Shepherd lived, and wandered Stockton Street and Ross Alley in Chinatown. What stays with me most, though, is the feel of the earthquake-damaged brick used to rebuild Cameron House.

• Master’s in Library and Information Science, University of Maryland

• Librarian in Washington, D.C.

• Studied at LA Writers Lab and The Writer’s Center, Bethesda, Maryland

• Lives in Asheville, North Carolina

  kathygoodwin820@gmail.com