Mary Emerick – författare

There are five layers of the ocean, though most of us alive will only ever see one. The deepest layer of the ocean is called by some the midnight zone. The only light comes from bioluminescence, created by animals themselves. In order to see, the creatures there must create their own light. They must move like solitary suns, encased in their own bubbles of freezing water. This layer is the most completely unexplored zone on the planet. Though it is hostile to humans, it also is fascinating beyond belief. If you had a chance to see it, wouldn't you want to go there?The year Mary is 38, the suicide of a stranger in a nearby reservoir compels her to make a change. She decides to strike out for Alaska and take a chance on love and home. She begins to learn how to travel in a small yellow kayak along the coast, contending with gales, high seas, and bears. She explores the different meanings of home: the perspectives of people who were born in this place and others who chose it, the first peoples who have been here for generations, and the ones who eventually leave.When she marries a man from another island, she is convinced that this time love will stick. She soon learns that navigating marriage is just as difficult as learning the ocean. Divided into sections detailing the main kayaking strokes, this memoir shows how each can be a metaphor for the lives we all pass through and the tools we need to stay afloat.

FIRE IN THE HEART is a powerful memoir by a woman, once a shy, insecure schoolgirl, who reinvented herself as a professional wildland fire fighter. Determined to forge herself into a stronger, braver person, Mary climbs to new heights for a woman in the field in the 90s, eventually becoming a team commander of a Florida wildfire division. Filled with literal struggles for survival, tough choices and Mary''s burning passion for what she does, Fire in the Heart, is an unflinching account of one woman''s relationship with fire. But when she loses someone she loves to the famous Storm King Mountain forest fire in Colorado, which killed fourteen firefighters, Mary faces the hardest choice of her life; to stay in the game or turn back and try to find the woman she used to be. It is both a thrilling memoir about life-threatening work and a meditation on identity, strength, bravery, bonds, and survivor''s guilt.