It was September, 1989. I'd won a one month residency at the Millay Colony for the Arts in Austerlitz, NY. Once there, they require nothing of you. If you choose to spend the entire month walking in the woods, it doesn't matter to them because they believe that eventually your being there in that place will eventually have result. I had written a weekly newspaper column for several years. I was pretty good at it, but it always had to be finished in 1,000 words or less. I spent my time at the Millay Colony teaching myself to write long and I produced 20 pages of what would be the very beginnings of Grants Ferry.

It languished for several years after that but never disappeared. Finally, in 2003 I began to tackle it in earnest. Nine years and multiple edits and revisions later, it's now complete.