...I imagine [my father's] pen pausing for lengths of time as he begins the story. I imagine him nursing a drink, staring into the clouds, and willing himself to recall more of what would typically pass unnoticed, not wanting to set out on what he knows will lead to pain. I imagine he clings to these moments the way he clung to their raft; I imagine he is frightened when he must leave them behind. Yet he begins....

American teacher and author. Sinor received her B.A. at the University of Nebraska, her M.A. at the University of Hawaii, and her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan. Presently she teaches creative writing at Utah State University, where she directs the Literature and Writing program. Her essays have appeared in literary journals such as Fourth Genre, the American Scholar, and Brevity. She is the author of The Extraordinary Work of Ordinary Writing (2002), based on the diary of Annie Ray, a nineteenth-century settler in the Dakota Territory who was one of Sinor's forebears. She is co-editor of an anthology, Placing the Academy: Essays on Landscape and Academic Identity (2007). See also english.usu.edu.