Nature Girl

My fondest childhood memories are of times spent with my parents and grandparents at what we called "the farm." Located in northern Vermont on 100 acres of wooded land, the "farm" was my grandfather's hunting retreat -- a ramshackle house with a front porch, outhouse, gas lamps, and a few bedrooms, one of which had a triple-decker bunkbed. In the kitchen was an enormous black cookstove in which my greataunt could bake her mouthwatering strawberry-rhubarb pies. Little wonder that my brother and cousins and I adored the place.

For me, one of the best things about the farm was the abundance of wildlife. We'd scrutinize the way the porcupines gnawed at the screen door because they liked the salt from our hands; the beaver that made his dam down the dirt road in a small pond; and the few trout that swam lazily in the abandoned well. Bear scat would appear now and then on the small patch of lawn, and we'd see the bears themselves off in the distance crossing the power line in search of ripe berries. Living among nature I felt whole, a feeling that would disipate little by little as we drove back to our home in Massachusetts.

Flash forward to today, to Maine, the state I've happily inhabited for the past twenty-five years. Here I can be a nature girl to my heart's content. I know that not everyone enjoys spotting a coyote at the neighbor's feeder, or watching as a moose wanders out from the bog into the middle of the street, but to me these indications that we share our world with more creatures than our pets is somehow redemptive. It's not all about me, or twitter entries, or how many calories I burn on the eliptical. There is a bigger world out there, a world that expands our senses and reawakens the same awe we felt as children. Ignore it, and you're likely to suffer what experts are now calling "nature-deficit disorder."

It's not surprising that my love of nature leads me to include the natural world in my mysteries. That wasn't too difficult in the first book (A House to Die For,) which, after all, took place in Maine. But the second in the Darby Farr Mystery Series, Killer Listing, is set on the Gulf Coast

of Florida. Luckily I have spent some wonderful times watching manatees, herons, dolphins, and even 'gators in the Sunshine State, so I was able to create a rich setting that included nature for my heroine. (The photo of my kids spotting one of the state's famous reptiles is from a camping trip in the Everglades years ago.) As to the diversity of plant life in Florida, I turned to several guidebooks (and, yes, the Internet) to help me write about bristlecone pines and fan palms, and my personal favorite -- the strangler fig.

Just as I cannot imagine my life without nature, I can't imagine my mysteries without it. What about you? Do you believe in the transformative power of the natural world, and do you include it in your books?