Kate Brandes’ creative energy seems boundless. She’s a novelist, watercolorist, printmaker, geologist, environmental scientist, professor, wife, mother and gardener.
Her second novel, “Stone Creek,” is scheduled for release this month and she’s already into the first draft of a third. Published by Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing in Oregon, its handsome softcover bears one of her watercolor paintings.
“Stone Creek” is the moving tale of Tilly Stone, a young woman whose anarchist, eco-terrorist father deserts her when she is only 13, leaving her to fend for herself in a cabin in the woods after years on the run as the pair blew up dam after dam.
“I thought the eco-terrorist subculture would be interesting to explore from a child’s perspective. I love characters who are complicated, both good and bad,” Kate said.
The father, Frank Stone, for example, despite his revenge-stoked crimes, always took pains to ensure no person would be physically hurt by the explosions he and his daughter set; And Tilly, despite all, loves him and misses him, but fears his return after 17 years will upset the life she has made for herself in a little town in rural Pennsylvania.
Parallel stories set in the author’s fictional Cottersville move smoothly back and forth between 2006 when Frank disappears and 10 days in 2023 when he returns and the fate of the dam on Stone Creek is decided.
While the book’s main topic is dark, Kate’s knowledge and love of the natural world and detailed observations of a special blue heron and descriptions of the land and colorful wildflowers add so much beauty to the story.
The author’s interest in complicated family dynamics plays out against complex groundwater issues in a company town not unlike Riegelsville.
Kate said her fictional Cottersville is “loosely based on Riegelsville,” a town once dominated by a single mill-owning family.
Like Riegelsville, Cottersville is set along the Delaware River. There’s even a scene in an old cemetery where the town’s founders are buried.
“That’s the Riegelsville Cemetery,” Kate said. “I pass it when I walk around town.”
She and her family have lived in the old riverside community for more than a decade and are still “the new people,” even though she previously served on the borough council for four and a half years.
“We love Riegelsville,” she said.
Describing Alexandria in Huntingdon County where she grew up, she said, “A main street, no stoplight and a single industry. I know small towns.”
A full-time professor at Moravian University in Bethlehem, she holds degrees in geology from Penn State and North Carolina State. Husband David, a civil engineer, teaches at Lafayette College in Easton. Their son, Owen, who just graduated from Palisades High School, is headed for Oberlin College. Son Sam goes to Palisades High School.
Kate has been working on “Stone Creek” for seven years, mostly in two-hour chunks from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., when the demands of her actual world take over.
There have been other times, she said, when she has had to work on a more sustained level. It’s basically the same pattern she followed when she wrote her first novel, “The Promise of Pierson Orchard.” Published by Wyatt-MacKenzie in 2017, it earned praise from the prestigious Kirkus Reviews. She has also had several short stories published.
She teaches geology, creative writing and a course on landscape culture at Moravian, where she also co-directs the Moravian Writers’ Conference.
Kate has scheduled a book talk and signing Saturday, Aug. 17 at 1 p.m. at the Riegelsville Public Library. She’ll also conduct a book talk and creative workshop at 6:30 p.m. Sept. 22 at Mariton Wildlife Sanctuary in Northampton County, just outside Riegelsville. Those who purchase a book there will also receive one of Kate’s original botanic prints.
“Stone Creek” is available in softcover and as an e-book.
Kathryn Finegan Clark is a freelance writer who lives in Durham Township. She can be reached at kathyclark817@gmail.com.
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