Read between the lines: Do you see yourself, Palmer?

MAT-SU — Mara’s journey to start a new life in Alaska is a familiar one for many who have adopted The Last Frontier as their new home.

Four years removed from the death of her husband, those close to Mara can’t understand her need to seek a new future, and where better than one of the most romantically adventurous places left in North America? Mara’s journey leads her to Palmer, where she becomes embroiled in a truly Alaska mystery.

It’s a story Marianne Schlegelmilch knows well. Decades earlier, she was the woman moving to Alaska sight unseen to start another chapter in her life. The mystery is also familiar to Schlegelmilch because she wrote it.

“Feather From A Stranger” is Schlegelmilch’s first novel. A former Palmer resident who now lives in Homer with her husband, Schlegelmilch has spent a lifetime writing and has published two children’s books and a pair of stories she calls “modern Alaska tales.” While Mara’s journey to the state is marked by a cryptic message from an Alaska Native man who gives her a feather, Schlegelmilch’s story is decidedly not one told by a stranger.

A registered nurse for more than 40 years, she hails from Flint, Mich., but has made Alaska her home, including nine years in the Valley running the first satellite center of the Blood Bank of Alaska. That experience makes “Feather From A Stranger” a uniquely personal read for local literary fans.

“Some of the main action in the novel happens in front of Fireside Books,” she said. “I don’t name Fireside Books, I just call it a book store. I describe the railroad depot and the parking lot and the street and the bookstore. So, anyone who lives in Palmer will immediately know.”

In the novel, Mara “represents all of us who came to Alaska, at least women,” Schlegelmilch said. “I think it will be an interesting read for people who live here, because I hope it will mirror how they feel about Alaska and what they observe about Alaska.”

For her, writing is more than putting words on paper.

“To me, writing is art,” she said. “I just take what I see in Alaska and create a piece of fiction with it. … I’m an unconventional writer. I’m just kind of weird in the way I write. I never know where it’s going to go, and I guess that’s why for me it’s art. I just get the germ of an idea and I sit down and start writing.”

Even with her first mystery, where many authors map out the major plot twists and turns, Schlegelmilch has her own approach.

“I don’t think about it. I know that’s probably not typical, although I can tell with my sequel (to ‘Feather From A Stranger’), I’m not mapping it out in advance, but I’m doing a retrospective outline,” she said.

“Feather” took some time to develop, she said.

“I started this novel when I was living in Palmer and working in Wasilla,” she said. “I just wanted to see if I could do it. It’s been through several incarnations. It sat on my computer for a couple of years, then I switched computers and started retyping it.”

Without giving away the plot, Schlegelmilch said the action really ramps up when Mara arrives in Palmer, where readers may recognize some of themselves in the characters.

“I tried, and I believe succeeded, in basing the characters on composites of actual people who live in the Valley,” she said. “One of the main characters is named Sassy. She ends up becoming one of the main focuses of the book. … I think the characters are realistic to what I remember.”

If readers think they recognize any of her characters as specific people, well, that’s just coincidence, Schlegelmilch said.

“I’m very descriptive about scenes and what I see, but it’s complete fiction all conjured up in my brain,” she said.

Another important character is Thor, a hybrid wolf dog whose first appearance is as a hero for Mara, retrieving her wedding ring after she drops it in the water.

“Thor was a real dog,” Schlegelmilch said. “A friend of ours had a dog named Thor. Thor’s no longer living and neither is the friend. But I did meet a dog named Thor once in my life and I loved him.”

While some of the fictional action in “Feather From A Stranger” happens outside Fireside Books, there will be some real action there Saturday. Schlegelmilch will be at the Palmer bookstore from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., signing copies of her novel.

She may also talk writing with aspiring wordsmiths.

“I have a strong opinion about (writing),” she said. “I have a lot of friends who spend a lot of time taking classes and studying (writing) and trying to make everything perfect. Yet, when you read it, it might be literally perfect, but it doesn’t move you. I think you need to just let what’s inside you come out and use writing as art.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.