The Pirate Queen (48 page)

My friends in Tromsø, Norway, Ragnhild Nilstun and Øystein Aspaas, were convivial hosts and Ragnhild has been a keen reader as well. I thank her especially for first pointing me
in the direction of Trouser-Beret. Gerd Brantenberg opened her home to me with good humor and kindness. Lars Børge Myklevoll of the Arran Center in Drag, Norway contributed to my knowledge of Trouser-Beret and her place in Sami history. But for Hilgunn Pedersen and her help, I would never have been able to write about her ancestor. I would also like to thank Norwegian Coastal Steamer, Inc.

The Seattle Arts Commission helped jump-start this project and I thank them. I am also grateful to the trustees of Brisons Veor, the writers' retreat at Cape Cornwell where I first read about women pirates and began dreaming about Grace O'Malley. Parts of this book were written at Soapstone, a writers' retreat in Oregon, and at the Baltic Writers and Translators Centre in Visby, Gotland. I am grateful for the time and space they offered.

Nancy Pollak, the Canadian friend with whom I almost met a watery end in the Inside Passage, encouraged me greatly in her readings of the manuscript in different stages. I also appreciate the support and comments of Jeanne Barrett, Judith Barrington, Betsy Howell, Rachel Lodge, Brenda Peterson, Louise Quayle, and Anna Wingfield. Tere Carranza contributed in many essential ways to the journey that was the basis for this book. Katherine Hanson was a resource, as always, regarding Scandinavia, and I thank her for many interesting conversations regarding Norns and the Norse pantheon of gods and goddesses.

I'd also like to thank Jennie Goode for graceful copyediting and heroic fact-checking, and Jenna Land Free for assistance with tracking down illustration permissions. I'm grateful to Suzanne Service for her maps and Patrick David Barber for book design and cover. To my niece, Jennifer Wilson, many thanks for designing the website
piratequeen.org
. To Ingrid Emerick, my editor at Seal, great thanks for enthusiasm and vision.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B
ARBARA
S
JOHOLM
is the editor of the anthology
Steady As She Goes: Women's Adventures at Sea.
Her essays and travel narratives have appeared in the
American Scholar,
the
New York Times, Smithsonian,
and
slate.com
. As Barbara Wilson, she is the author of numerous books, including the award-winning memoir
Blue Windows: A Christian Science Childhood,
and
Gaudí Afternoon,
which won a British Crime Writers Award for best thriller set in Europe, and was filmed in Barcelona by Susan Seidelman. She has translated several books from Norwegian and was awarded a Columbia Translation Prize for her work on Cora Sandel's short stories. She lives in Seattle.

Visit the book's website at
www.piratequeen.org
.

SELECTED TITLES FROM SEAL PRESS

Steady As She Goes
edited by Barbara Sjoholm. $15.95, 1-58005-094-8. This collection of harrowing adventure yarns and illuminating boating tales will appeal to anyone who has ever dreamed of running away to sea.

Give Me the World
by Leila Hadley. $14.95, 1-58005-091-3. The spirited story of one young woman's travels by boat and by land with her six-year-old son.

Going Alone: Women's Adventures in the Wild
edited by Susan Fox Rogers. $14.95, 1-58005-106-5. Explores the many ways women find fulfillment, solace, and joy when they head out alone into the great outdoors.

The Curve of Time: The Classic Memoir of a Woman and her Children Who Explored the Coastal Waters of the Pacific Northwest,
second edition by M. Wylie Blanchet, foreword by Timothy Egan. $15.95, 1-58005-072-7. The memoir of a woman who acted as both mother and captain of the boat that became her family's home during the summer.

No Hurry to Get Home: The Memoir of the
New Yorker
Writer Whose Unconventional Life and Adventures Spanned the Twentieth Century
by Emily Hahn. $14.95, 1-58005-045-X. Hahn's memoir captures her free-spirited, charismatic personality and her inextinguishable passion for the unconventional life.

The Unsavvy Traveler: Women's Comic Tales of Catastrophe
edited by Rosemary Caperton, Anne Mathews, and Lucie Ocenas. $15.95, 1-58005-058-1. Twenty-five gut-wrenchingly funny responses to the question: What happens when trips go wrong?

A Woman Alone: Travel Tales from Around the Globe
edited by Faith Conlon, Ingrid Emerick, and Christina Henry de Tessan. $15.95, 1-58005-059-X. A collection of rousing stories by women who travel solo.

Seal Press publishes many outdoor and travel books by women writers. Please visit our website at
www.sealpress.com