Matherne, Buckles share writings in Wakefield

WAKEFIELD — A second installment of the U.P. Women’s Author Tour was held Thursday evening at the Wakefield Municipal Building.

Presented by the Wakefield Public Library, two authors, Beverly Matherne and Julie Buckles, read aloud some of their work and discussed with community members.

Matherne began the evening introducing herself and reading several of her poems and short stories.

Matherne grew up in New Orleans and later moved to Michigan, where she has been living for the past 24 years.

She is an English professor at Northern Michigan University, as well as a bilingual poet, drawing inspiration from her Cajun/Francophone roots.

Matherne said she writes most her poems in both French and English and sometimes the two are intertwined.

She said her work is extremely personal and she takes a lot of pride in what she writes.

“I don’t write the same thing over and over again,” Matherne said.

“I like to experiment a lot. But I do have a lot of respect for short, terse poems because I think they have a certain amount of power.”

Matherne read aloud one of her short poems, entitled “Spring,” along with many other pieces, including a villanelle, a 19-line poem, about a trip she took with a suitor called “Merlot.”

Buckles took up the second half of the evening with a few readings from her novel and a more recent short story.

Buckles is originally from southwest Wisconsin and now lives near Bayfield, Wis., with her husband, two children and their team of Siberian Husky sled dogs.

Despite the fact she doesn’t live in Michigan, last year she was No. 8 on the Upper Peninsula best seller list in July for her book, “Paddling to Winter,” from which Buckles read a few passages Thursday evening.

Buckles has written for Wisconsin Public Radio, specifically the program Wisconsin Life, which airs twice a week with two-minute segments of little slices of life in Wisconsin.

The first piece Buckles shared Thursday evening was a 500-word story she wrote for the radio program, describing her experience racing sled dogs and raising kids at the same time.

The piece has not yet aired so the attendees Thursday night were some of the first to hear it.

Buckles said the piece has laid the basic outline for her next book, which will encompass her life with sled dogs and kids.

The other two sections Buckles read were from “Paddling into Winter,” which is the retelling of her honeymoon trip with her husband, Charly.

The two set out on a 1,700-mile canoe trip to Wollaston Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada, from Wisconsin.

Buckles kept a journal through the journey, which was a four-month canoe trip and another eight months living in Saskatchewan over the winter.

“It has served as a really great timeline,” Buckles said.

“The second part of our trip, we had so much time and so we wrote a lot. And I had troves of stuff to draw from for the book,” she said.

She said she also wrote letters to her mom and best friend, who gave those letters back to Buckles to help her write her book.

Attendees had the opportunity to speak one-on-one with the women.

For more information about the authors, visit their websites: juliebuckles.com and beverlymatherne.com.