Lionel Fisher

I write for a living, always have, always will, at least that’s the plan. As a wordsmith-for-hire my entire professional life, I’ve been a corporate communicator, advertising/​public relations copywriter-creative director, journalist, columnist and freelance writer, not necessarily in that order, though jointly at times, living and working in glorious metropolises from Hong Kong, my borning place, to Manila, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Miami, Portland, Oregon, and finally Ocean Park, Washington. Now, in much greater seclusion, I write books of the self-hinder genre on a Pacific Northwest beach to which I moved 19 years ago. “I haven’t retired, just retreated,” read the notice I tucked into my Christmas cards that December of galactic change. “This year I stopped the world and got off. On Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula, about a mile from Oysterville. Drop by for a beer if you’re in the neighborhood. If I’m not home, check the beach. I’ll probably be walking the dog.” This is a writer’s place, solitary, reclusive, resonant with stillness, the last knuckle on a rain-scoured finger of land lapped by the beige waters of Willapa Bay and the gray Pacific, wrapped in khaki sands and olive clouds except in summer when the sky is the color of washed denim. Here, wind and water lean on the land, thrusting a constant coolness from across the sea, buffing the stars at night to an awesome brilliance. Here, after a lifetime of writing for others, I write strictly for myself. But because the sacred rite isn’t complete, doesn’t achieve its holy purpose – the writer’s divine culmination of being read – I write for you as well. And I am overwhelmingly grateful for the reciprocal attention.