On her blog, Cherie Priest has announced that she and her husband have bought a house in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and they're leaving Seattle in May. I'd heard rumors about this among booksellers for a while, but it's still a bummer:
When my husband and I looked in the bank, our savings added up to a minimum down-payment on a mediocre condo here in Seattle ⌠or ⌠a huge portion of a restored Victorian back home in Tennessee; and these days, we each earn most of our living through channels which are not place-dependent. So with a lot of soul-searching and number-crunching, we decided to take the plunge...Seattle has treated me well, and Iâm not out to abandon with a wild cry of, âSo long, suckers!â Iâve accumulated some dear friends, writing buddies, and bookstore connections who I hope to see on a regular basis.
But itâs true (and no great secret) that Iâve found the region difficult at times. Iâm a Gulf Coast girl who grew up on the beach, and the Northwestâs gloom and dampness have taken their toll.
Seattle certainly has treated Priest well; her big breakthrough book, Boneshaker, was inspired in large part by the Underground Tour in Pioneer Square, and though the other books in her Clockwork Century series run around the country quite a bit, they seems to always come back to Seattle in the end. (The vampire/thief star of her pulpier, lighter Cheshire Red series is based in Pioneer Square and Capitol Hill, too.) It'll be interesting to see how Priest's work changes as she moves away from the "gloom and dampness" to friendlier weather. Seattle will miss having her around.
