This week’s Best Women’s Travel Writing 2010 contributor spent her childhood listening to Garth Brooks and eating T-bone steaks and much of her adulthood writing 
about war and aphorisms: Jen Percy. A MFA Candidate at the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program, she has written for the New York Times, The Atlantic, Brevity, and the Literary Review.
What is “home” for you? Is it a particular place or person or thing?
I moved around a lot as a kid—every few years—mostly around Oregon and Hawaii. I spent a good chunk of my childhood, however, in a town called Tumalo in rural Oregon. It had 500 people, a blinking street light and a restaurant called Hamburger Patties that was painted all white on the inside and full of old farmers. My friends were into country music and rodeo and I had a view of seven mountains out my bedroom window. I spent most of my time outside, wearing hiking boots, smelling like pine sap, and walking for miles without seeing another person—and when I did—they would wave as if it were an important event. The city for me is exotic. You’d never know about my childhood from looking at me. I used to wear those shirts with wolves or eagles or some other wild animal on them with a giant Indian head rising out of the sunset. I took my first public bus when I was fifteen and I was horrified. Going into the woods for days with some peanut butter and a backpack and a compass still seems like home for me. Read the rest of this entry »
