Out on the Deep Blue: True Stories of Daring, Persistence, and Survival from the Nation's Most Dangerous Profession [Paperback]

Leslie Leyland Fields (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 4, 2002

This is the first collection of dramatic, first-person accounts of commercial fishing written by the men and women who work in the nation's most dangerous occupation. Nineteen diverse fisher-writers, from the famous to the unknown, take the reader swordfish harpooning on the Georges Banks, winter crabbing in the Bering Sea, sea-urchin diving off Maine, herring fishing in Alaska, shark-harpooning off Scotland and points between. Together, they plumb the extremes of living, working, and sometimes dying at sea, creating the most intensely personal portrait of fishing and fishermen to date.

The best writing on commercial fishing is gathered here, blending the voices of such well-known writers as Peter Mathiessen, Gavin Maxwell, Linda Greenlaw, Spike Walker, and John Cole, together with experienced and emerging writers, many of whom have spent much of their lives on the water. With its layers and rich textures, this collection will have strong, enduring appeal to loves of nonfiction.

Contributors:

Marie Beaver
John Cole
Michael Crowley
Wendy Erd
Leslie Leyland Fields
Robert Fritchey
Joel Gay
Linda Greenlaw
Seth Harkness
Nancy Lord
Peter Mathiessen
Gavin Maxwell
William McCloskey
Paul Molyneaux
Debra Nielsen
Toby Sullivan
Martha Sutro
Joe Upton
Spike Walker

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Since 1978, Leslie Leyland Fields has followed the schools of ready-to-spawn fish out to a remote island where she and her husband fish commercially for salmon. With five children, ranging in ages from thirteen to six months, the island now has a population of seven.

Her essays have recently appeared in The Atlantic, Orion, The Christian Science Monitor, Experiencing Nature: A Creative Nonfiction Reader, The Best of Oregon Quarterly, and others. She is the recent winner of the Virginia Faulkner award for excellence in writing.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (October 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312303009
• ISBN-13: 978-0312303006
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,325,813 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LESLIE LEYLAND FIELDS is a writer, speaker and professional editor who lives on Kodiak Island, Alaska in the winter and Harvester Island in the summer, where she works in commercial salmon fishing with her family. She has written/edited 7 nonfiction books of memoir and essays on a variety of subjects, including the spirituality of food, wilderness, commercial fishing, and parenting. She loves to travel, and spent several years trekking around the world, through Asia, S.E. Asia, Africa, Europe, and Central America. She still travels often, leaving Kodiak to speak at conferences, churches, retreats, and universities around the country.

Leslie has written for many publications including The Atlantic, Orion, Image: Art, Faith Mystery, Beliefnet, Christianity Today (where she writes a column, "Stones to Bread") Christian Science Monitor, Books and Culture, and many others. Her essays have appeared in On Nature: Great Writers on the Great Outdoors; It's a Girl: Women Writers on Raising Daughters; A Mile in Her Boots: Women Who Work in the Wild, and many others.

She has three graduate degrees in Creative Nonfiction, English and Journalism.
Leslie has taught for many years in both undergraduate and graduate programs in Oregon, Alaska and Washington and now continues to teach through college visits, frequent radio appearances, speaking, and her professional writing business, The Northern Pen.

Leslie and her husband Duncan have 6 children, a daughter and 5 sons, all of whom work in salmon fishing every summer. You can reach her at [e-mail]