Finding a Place in Oral History

With my first book, Heavy, I wanted to capture Rock Springs, the Wyoming boomtown where I grew up, in all of its grit and glory. Not long after Heavy came out, however, I began to feel like I’d only scratched the surface of the place. The realization was equally daunting and inspiring. I knew I had to write another book about my hometown, but I didn’t know what form it would take. In 2019, three years after Heavy was published, the idea finally struck me: to understand a place like Rock Springs, you need to hear firsthand accounts of what it’s like to live there—and a narrative oral history would be the perfect way to collect those stories.

deals with suicide and addiction as cultural norms in mining towns and how that shapes people who grow up in such places—and it’s a project I still believe in. But there are so many aspects of Rock Springs doesn’t capture, capture, largely because it’s a memoir.