The Author

Welcome!

I'm Amy Stewart.  I'm the author of four books:  WICKED PLANTS, FLOWER CONFIDENTIAL, THE EARTH MOVED, and FROM THE GROUND UP. They've all been published by Algonquin Books.

I live in Eureka, CA where, along with my husband and another couple, I own an antiquarian bookstore  called Eureka Books. The bookstore in my novel bears a striking resemblance to Eureka Books. The town the novel is set in is Eureka, with a few minor modifications.

I'm also on Twitter.  And Facebook. 

You can read more about me and the rest of my life on my website.  But what I'm doing here is sharing a novel in progress.  Read more about that process here.

I'd love your feedback.  Feel free to post a comment and say hello.

Comments

[heather]

Hi
I've been cheerleading this book to my dad, who lived in Humboldt in the early seventies as a student. it caused him to reminisce, too, and I thought you'd be interested in what he said:
"He did it in response to the area being turned into a historic district. Things I remember...the mentally handicapped guy who put on an old fashioned vendors bib and walked the streets sell the Times Standard. Wong did a painting of him that used to hang in Tomasso's. Martin's gallery was across the street. The corner next door was Restoration Hardware. I got all the parts to fix my house out of the bins there, Including a redwood door with an external lock that was probably from the 1880's (or earleir). Lot's of places were boarded up, but the Vance was the home to so many artists and writers, and folks in less glamorous professions. The pimps used to drink at the Ritz while their ladies worked the street out front, and there were A LOT of prostitutes working the area in those days. I used to love to go dancing at the Log Cabin Tavern in the Vance. The walls were split rounds of redwood and all the furniture was made from limbs and slabs. I guess it was THE speakeasy in the '20's.

"On two street after dark you knew you were in the danger zone. The street lights were all dysfunctional, no doubt by the intent of the residents. Red lights glowed in some of the second story windows. The scent of bud drifted. Wine bottles littered the curb. Two street was a place where prosperity left in '29 and never came back, but there were a lot of people who lived in and loved that place anyway.

"That's why Martin made his book. He knew it was passing, as he was passing to a new life."