Author explores grief in memoir

When Emily Halnon's mother died of a rare uterine cancer at the age of 66, Emily knew she wanted to do "something monumental" to pay tribute to her mother's adventurous and courageous spirit - and to process her own grief.

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Emily Halnon is a dedicated distance runner and a writer. She is one of the authors featured in the Sisters Festival of Books September 13-15.

Halnon - an accomplished ultra-runner (extreme long distance) - was determined to try to break the record for the fastest known time by a woman on the Pacific Crest Trail's 460 miles across Oregon.

That journey - and the journey through grief - are interwoven with remembrances of her mother's life and death in "To The Gorge: Running, Grief, Resilience & 460 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail." Halnon will present her book as part of the Sisters Festival of Books, Friday through Sunday, September 13-15.

Halnon told The Nugget that she started working on the book in the winter of 2020, sold it on proposal, and turned in her final draft in January 2024.

"I wanted these two journeys - the journey across Oregon and the journey through grief - to be in conversation with each other," she said. "There were a lot of shared threads that were very natural to weave together through the story."

Navigating her grief and sense of lost was acutely difficult - and the run was "by far the hardest run I've ever gone on in my life," she said.

While "To The Gorge" is her first book, Halnon has long been a professional writer, with published work in media including The Guardian, The Washington Post, Runner's World, Salon, Trail Runner Magazine, UltraSignup News, Women's Running Magazine, Huffington Post, and Adventure Journal.

Writing and running are integrally connected for Halnon, though she acknowledges that she thought of herself as a runner before she began to think of herself as a writer.

"It took a while to embrace that as a part of who I am," she said.

The two elements are connected, not only in her sense of identity, but in the most practical of terms: Running stimulates the flow of creativity.

"I would get no writing done if I only sat at my desk," she said. "Movement really helps me unlock ideas."

Halnon said that she is not yet working on a new book. So much of her went into the writing of "To The Gorge" that she feels like she needs to recuperate. The analogy to her ultra-running is obvious, and on-point: She said it's like recovering from a 100-mile ultramarathon.

The Sisters Festival of Books will be Halnon's first book festival - and she's looking forward to the experience.

"I've been interested in sharing my book with communities that are a great fit for it - and Sisters checked all the boxes," she said. "Sisters seemed like a really obvious place to say 'yes' to an event. I'm excited for it."

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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