Writing Place Accomplished Idaho Writers Have Spurned Opportunities For More Money And Exposure In Favor Of Bucolic Isolation

Twenty-five miles up the Clearwater River from Lewiston, writer Kim Barnes pads down the dirt path toward her husband Robert Wrigley’s writing studio.

Wildflowers speckle the surrounding river canyon hillsides.

Stopping to toss a stick for her black lab, Violet, Barnes points out a cock pheasant strutting into the yard and curses the trailside dandelions resisting the couple’s organic weeding program.

This bucolic setting belies Barnes and Wrigley’s ascent in the literary arena. While raising their three children in rural north central Idaho, the husband-and-wife writers are swiftly becoming the state’s most prominent and accomplished literary pair.

Last month, Barnes, 38, found out she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in literary biography for her first book, “In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country” ($22.50, Doubleday). It’s the most recent acclaim for the revealing story of her childhood in the logging camps of North Idaho, her parents startling conversion to Pentecostal fundamentalism and her subsequent teenage rebellion.

As automation and a declining economy drove many loggers out of the wilderness and into despair during the 1960s, Barnes’ father dug in, his determination fueling the family’s turn toward Pentecostalism. Barnes’ journey into adulthood probes how geography and faith defined her life.

“Engrossing … revealing, spiritual, cleansing, transcendent - and awash in the elements that make life’s flow so unpredictable, wonderful and often haunting,” wrote a Chicago Tribune book critic.

Though she didn’t win the Pulitzer, Barnes won the 1995 PEN/Jerard Award for an emerging woman writer in non-fiction after submitting a 50-page draft of the book.

After receiving the prestigious $30,000 Guggenheim award last year, Wrigley’s working on his sixth book of poems, titled “Conjure,” due out June 1999.

Barnes and Wrigley split a teaching position at Lewis-Clark State College in Lewiston, where they share a small office. They’ve remained at Lewis-Clark despite offers from eastern private colleges that offered salaries sometimes double those on Idaho’s lagging academic pay scale.

“We’ve chosen isolation and no money over more prestigious programs and Lord knows more money because we believe our family is better here,” Barnes says.

Ultimately, quality of work is more important than who you know or where you are, they maintain. While it helps that rural western writers are hot in New York now, being selected a Pulitzer runner-up is the most effective networking tool.

“It affected me in ways nothing else had; mostly it’s the recognition,” Barnes says. “You’re with the literati, which is something that doesn’t happen very often when you live in Lenore, Idaho.”

The tiny town of about 50 has no cafe where writers can chain-smoke and trade metaphors. There’s not even a tavern to dislodge stubborn words with a glass of scotch.

“I’m not sure that the neighbors understand that one of a writer’s primary tasks is to sit around a lot,” says Wrigley, smiling.

Wrigley, 46, writes in a 12-by-16-foot study 50 yards from the main house. He built it with some of his Guggenheim money. He calls the square hut with breathtaking views “my clubhouse.”

Like a boy’s hideout, there are pictures of women … a black-and-white photo of Barnes above his desk and erotically posed nudes (including Thomas Benton’s 1938 painted Persephone) positioned to peer over his shoulder when he’s writing. A boombox collects dust in the corner.

But there’s also an air of a grandfather’s den, with sturdy oak furniture, faded sheet music framed on the wall, a vintage 1940s Montgomery Ward woodstove in the corner and the faint smell of cigars.

Barnes writes in the main house, within earshot of the phone and reach of the stovetop for simmering soup at lunchtime. They plan to add a study for her soon.

While trying to avoid the “regionalism” that sometimes pigeonholes western writers, Barnes and Wrigley concede there’s a strong sense of place in their writing.

Despite misgivings about recently being pegged a “nature poet” in New York, Wrigley admits he came of age as a writer in the West, where nature’s symbols and images continue to inspire his poetic voice.

“There might be some dazzling urbanites that might be put off by that, or just not understand it, but it’s where I gather my material,” Wrigley says. “It’s got to do with the love of place, particularly this spot right here.”

Land metaphors also drive Barnes’ current writing, she says. Her next book, “Out of the Fire,” takes off from the first book, chronicling her life from when she left home at 18 to the present. Wrigley plays a part.

Barnes met him as a student in his introduction to literature class. A premed major, she needed the course for a general requirement.

Her curiosity about Wrigley intensified when a friend said: “That’s Mr. Wrigley. He’s kind of weird. He’s a poet.”

Their story was just beginning.

“I was a married professor who became involved with one of his students,” Wrigley explains. “But for all the soap opera twists and turns, it has an astonishingly happy ending.”

They’ve been married for 13 years and have three children. Wrigley’s ex-wife is now the English department secretary, and the three get along well.

“He was my first teacher and remains my most important teacher,” Barnes says. “He taught me everything I know about writing. He taught me how to make the language sing.”

Barnes had a natural knack even though her primary influences were limited to the King James Bible and The Children’s Library of Classics. She developed respect for rhythm and cadence in language through the glossolalia tongue of her Pentecostal upbringing.

Wrigley, who studied at the University of Montana under the late Richard Hugo, turns to his former student for primary editing and suggestions.

“Kim’s my first reader and my most trusted reader.”

It’s not always easy.

“Sometimes I just want to be told, ‘This is great; keep on writing,”’ Wrigley says. “We’ve learned to navigate those situations.”

They also steal from each other, lifting good material from a common treasure chest.

“We work together. We write together. We spend more time together than any couple I know, unless they are retired,” Barnes says. “It’s very complementary.”

“We are like two halves of the same critter,” Wrigley adds.

Barnes’ book, which West Coast book sellers are having difficulty keeping in stock, is on the verge bringing in royalties beyond its $40,000 advance.

The book’s triumph, Wrigley says, is Barnes’ ability to tell difficult, personal stories without pointing fingers. It was a precarious balance to find, considering some of the descriptions of her father.

The dilemma haunts many nonfiction writers relating tales of loved ones still living.

“The first thing writers have to believe is that they own their own stories,” Barnes says.

Writing out of anger, bitterness or therapy is the wrong reason, Barnes says.

“You have to think, ‘If I go about this with honesty and compassion and it still alienates my family and friends, am I still willing to risk that?”’

Barnes was. And there were predictably tense moments after she gave her father the prepublication draft.

“He said, ‘Do I want you to publish this book? No. Do I think you should? Yes.”’

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