Ask the Author: D. Dauphinee
Answered Questions (10)
D. Dauphinee
After midnight, the wrenching feeling in Sarah's gut overwhelmed her and she ran upstairs to her young daughter's bedroom screaming, "Emma...Emma, answer me!"
She flung open the door, and wailed when she saw the empty bed.
She flung open the door, and wailed when she saw the empty bed.
D. Dauphinee
Lilliput, in Gulliver's Travels.
I can tell you what I would'nt do...I would'nt fall asleep on the beach.
I can tell you what I would'nt do...I would'nt fall asleep on the beach.
D. Dauphinee
Hi! I'm reading "Beyond the Outer Shores," about the 'bro-mance' between John Steinbeck & Ed Ricketts. I recently read "Running the Amazon," by Joe Kane and U.S. Grant's autobiography--which was amazing .
D. Dauphinee
How could I, at age twenty-four, let a young woman I loved go off to grad school without me- after she begged me to go with her. Succumbing to the long distance, we drifted apart. She went hiking with some new friends, slipped on some steep slabs of rock, hit her head, and died. It still haunts me that I wasn't there to help her. I could have saved her. I would have saved her. I was a climbing guide in those days, and I'm convinced I would have made a difference. My own personal tragedy.
D. Dauphinee
When I was young, I somehow learned the importance of the story...how stories could transport us--teach us, and direct us. For me, not writing would've been difficult to do.
Not much of an answer, I'm afraid, but true.
Not much of an answer, I'm afraid, but true.
D. Dauphinee
Don't get it. For me personally, writing is very much work...if I don't feel like writing, or can't get started, or am not sure what to write, I do it anyway. You can fix the product of those days in the editing process. But at least you're marching forward.
D. Dauphinee
A deeply personal satisfaction that just may come to define you. It's not about the money, or the fame...one shouldn't be a writer if that's what is important to you.
In the end, you have a supreme sense of accomplishment.
In the end, you have a supreme sense of accomplishment.
D. Dauphinee
Read, read, read...then write. Set aside a prescribed amount of time everyday--whatever you can manage, and then stick to it.
Don't worry about what ANYBODY tells you--just keep plugging until you have at least a first draft.
Study and learn the "Elements of Style," by Will Strunk (later edited by E. B. White).
Don't worry about what ANYBODY tells you--just keep plugging until you have at least a first draft.
Study and learn the "Elements of Style," by Will Strunk (later edited by E. B. White).
D. Dauphinee
I have a book coming out June 1st, 2019, titled, "When You Find My Body," which tells the tragic story of Gerry Largay's 2013 ill-fated attempt of the Appalachian Trail, published by Rowman & Littlefield.
I am now knee-deep in a novel about two Harvard archaeology grad students (a couple) and a friend, who end up in a pickle in South America.
I am now knee-deep in a novel about two Harvard archaeology grad students (a couple) and a friend, who end up in a pickle in South America.
D. Dauphinee
While backpacking through Europe during the summer of 1988, I stumbled upon the World War 1 memorial at Vimy Ridge. I had no idea what hallowed ground I was standing on. In fact, at the time, I had no knowledge that I was standing on Canadian soil. Poised at the base of the memorial, I must have looked a bit confused; a French visitor offered some information. He was much older than I was then. Tentatively, he asked if I knew what had happened here, seventy-one years ago. I shook my head.
The gentleman was dressed simply, in a light blue windbreaker, and pressed beige pants. I had been flopping from hostel to hostel for a month, and was not so nicely turned out.
He looked up at the two great monoliths, craning his head back very far. I just stared at the thousands of names etched into the limestone. Then he looked out at the green grass and well defined pathways, and waved his hand across the entire valley and hillside. “This was nothing but mud,” he said. “Not just mud…but twisted metal, barbed wire, tattered cloth, and bones; rotting carcasses everywhere. There were many bones—of men, and horses.” He looked very serious and sad. “Of course, I wasn’t here, in the war,” he told me, “I was just a boy…but I knew some who were here.”
He said he had come here many times, that it wasn’t too far for him to travel. He told me he had come with his parents to see all the Canadians at the memorial’s dedication ceremony. He told me a lot of what he knew of the battle. He told me, “We French had tried for over a year to take the heights from the Germans, but lost more than a hundred-thousand men.” A disgusted look appeared on the old fellow’s face. “It became a revolving suicidal mission. They just couldn’t do it.” The old man pointed a bent index finger at me. “The Canadians…they figured it out.”
After over an hour, I offered to buy him lunch, but he declined. He had to go, he told me, and then finally introduced himself. When I told him my name was Denis, but that most people called me Dee, he asked, “Your family name?” I looked back at the wall of names, reached out my arm, and tapped a name on the cold limestone: Dauphinee.
Over the last quarter century I forgot the gentleman’s name, and cannot find it in my journals—another name lost to history—if only my own, personal history. But other names from that day have stayed etched in my memory, like they are in the cold stone at Vimy Ridge. Who were these boys, who died so far from home? What were they like? What were they facing in 1917?
Many years later, my sister began researching our family history. I found our lineage interesting, and her work became the catalyst for me starting my own search for a nineteen-year-old named Stanley from Nova Scotia.
A simple inquiry of who he was became an epic journey of discovery and learning. It became an odyssey, one that helped me understand a gallant moment in history: a moment that defined an army, and helped shape a nation’s sense of self.
The gentleman was dressed simply, in a light blue windbreaker, and pressed beige pants. I had been flopping from hostel to hostel for a month, and was not so nicely turned out.
He looked up at the two great monoliths, craning his head back very far. I just stared at the thousands of names etched into the limestone. Then he looked out at the green grass and well defined pathways, and waved his hand across the entire valley and hillside. “This was nothing but mud,” he said. “Not just mud…but twisted metal, barbed wire, tattered cloth, and bones; rotting carcasses everywhere. There were many bones—of men, and horses.” He looked very serious and sad. “Of course, I wasn’t here, in the war,” he told me, “I was just a boy…but I knew some who were here.”
He said he had come here many times, that it wasn’t too far for him to travel. He told me he had come with his parents to see all the Canadians at the memorial’s dedication ceremony. He told me a lot of what he knew of the battle. He told me, “We French had tried for over a year to take the heights from the Germans, but lost more than a hundred-thousand men.” A disgusted look appeared on the old fellow’s face. “It became a revolving suicidal mission. They just couldn’t do it.” The old man pointed a bent index finger at me. “The Canadians…they figured it out.”
After over an hour, I offered to buy him lunch, but he declined. He had to go, he told me, and then finally introduced himself. When I told him my name was Denis, but that most people called me Dee, he asked, “Your family name?” I looked back at the wall of names, reached out my arm, and tapped a name on the cold limestone: Dauphinee.
Over the last quarter century I forgot the gentleman’s name, and cannot find it in my journals—another name lost to history—if only my own, personal history. But other names from that day have stayed etched in my memory, like they are in the cold stone at Vimy Ridge. Who were these boys, who died so far from home? What were they like? What were they facing in 1917?
Many years later, my sister began researching our family history. I found our lineage interesting, and her work became the catalyst for me starting my own search for a nineteen-year-old named Stanley from Nova Scotia.
A simple inquiry of who he was became an epic journey of discovery and learning. It became an odyssey, one that helped me understand a gallant moment in history: a moment that defined an army, and helped shape a nation’s sense of self.
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