I didn’t come to writing through classrooms or workshops, but through years spent in the field; on mountainsides, in remote camps, vast oceans, and in places where stories were told because there was nothing else to do but listen.
I worked as a field geologist and later a marine geologist, traveling across the United States and abroad, often in rugged and isolated environments. Along the way, I learned that the most memorable stories rarely came from official records, but from the people who lived just outside of them.
Much of my writing draws from that world: family history, lived experience, and the kind of stories passed down around campfires rather than written down in books.
Across the Grain of Time, One Slice of Time, and Citizen of the World tell different parts of the same larger story: one reaches back through the generations, one follows my mother’s remarkable life, and one traces my own path through distant places and unexpected turns.
I write to hold onto stories that might otherwise be lost.
John "Reety" Rietman 