Pigeon Guillemot by Mick Thompson

Come and join us this May for a presentation on seabirds by writer and artist, Frances Wood.  Frances has published five books including Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Bird Watching in the West (Fulcrum Publishing) and has co-created the popular radio program BirdNote and written over 100 on-air segments.  She also creates artwork on birds and seascapes in the Pacific Northwest, which is featured at Rob Schouten Gallery in Langley, WA.   

Years ago, Frances Wood became enamored by Pigeon Guillemots, a species of black and white seabirds with fire engine red feet that breed in the bluffs near her home on Whidbey Island. Frances now leads volunteers from Whidbey Audubon on a community science project that is dedicated to the research, education, and protection of the pigeon guillemot. Please join us for an enjoyable talk and slideshow featuring Pacific Northwest photography, artwork, and research on pigeon guillemots.

This event is free and open to the public. Program Nights takes place on the fourth Thursday of every month from 7-9 pm unless otherwise indicated. Doors open at 6 pm.

Frances Wood’s Story

My dad and grandfather were writers, but early on I thought that either my brother or sister would be the writer of my generation and turned instead to art and teaching. In 1992, I looked around and realized that the writing job was still vacant, so I grabbed it. Like opening a spigot of words, I wrote day and night to catch up on lost time. I jumped into a non-fiction certificate course at the University of Washington, (following the footsteps of my father who wrote non-fiction books) became editor of the Seattle Audubon newsletter and convinced the local paper they needed a bird watching column.

Shortly after, my two sons left home and I began researching our family history, which grew into my first book Down to Camp: A History of Summer Folk on Whidbey Island. That book prompted my second book Community at the Crossroads: The History of Bayview on Whidbey Island. Next came Langley, a photo history with Arcadia Publishing of the town where I live.

Along the way I wrote Brushed by Feathers: A Year of Birdwatching in the West (Fulcrum Publishing). This book is particularly special to me since it brings together my writing, art and lifelong study of wild birds. After that I began writing scripts for BirdNote, a daily radio program on the intriguing ways of birds.

After years writing about birds and local history, I enrolled in the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts’ Whidbey Writers Workshop to pursue an MFA in creative writing. That program has taken me into writing young adult historical fiction and the publication of my first novel, Becoming Beatrice. Now I am following in the footsteps of my grandfather, who published several YA historical fiction novels more than 50 years ago.

My husband I make our home on Whidbey Island, Washington. We tend a vegetable garden, a small vineyard and a flock of chickens. I continue to write and paint within a mile of the cabin where my grandfather crafted his first novel many years ago. Daily I marvel at the beauty of the natural world and the large variety of wild birds that share our lives.