What Triggers Stories? 

By Laura Treacy Bentley

Irish poet, Michael Longley, said: “I don’t know where poems come from, but I want to go there.” I, too, want to find this magical place, and I feel the inspiration for stories as well as poetry is all around us. We just need to look for it. 

My trips to Ireland inspired my first novel, The Silver Tattoo. I kept a journal each time and took many photos. One was of a busker painted silver from head to toe on Grafton Street in Dublin. I framed it along with a few others and hung them in my stairway. Every day I would glance at them a couple times, especially the one of the busker. 

I was based in Dublin first, Galway second, and then I was accepted for a month-long writing residency in Co. Clare on the West Coast. I walked to the dramatic Cliffs of Moher almost daily and took a ferry twice to the Aran Islands. It was exciting and unsettling at the same time to be alone in the land of my ancestors, but it made me acutely aware of everything around me. I soaked up the landscape, the people, their legends, and wrote a number of poems during my stay. I had no idea I would write a novel after I returned home. The snapshot of that enchanting silver busker became the trigger for the first chapter of The Silver Tattoo, so my inspiration was clearly image driven.

Glass Mountain, my latest novel, has its roots in the mountains of Garrett County, Maryland. My husband and I had a cabin built there about twenty years ago and quickly we learned of the regular presence of black bears. Unfortunately, we discovered that our cabin is located on one of the old trails they cross to reach Meadow Mountain. We first found bear tracks sunk in wet sand just outside our bedroom window. My husband poured concrete into the tracks to save them, and they are now displayed on the wall. After that, we often saw bears on our property, and one even tried to break into our cabin. That bear and her cubs were quickly captured and relocated with the help of day-old cherry donuts and DNR professionals. We are always on the lookout now and have learned to be cautious and much safer: no food is ever left outside or in our car, doors are always locked, and we carry an airhorn with us when we are outside. We have learned to live with black bears, so an element of fear (of bears!), became a source of inspiration for my new novel.

Glass Mountain was also influenced by a short story I had written years ago, as well as an older teacher named Louise whose classroom was right next door to mine. She was creative, smart, and possessed a delightful sense of humor. A few teachers met for lunch one day, and Louise began by ordering dessert. She told us that she always ordered the best part first, just like Sam in my novel. Twyla called Sam a survivalist with a sweet tooth.

My story, characters, and settings are drawn from my imagination and a lifetime of experiences. I’m drawn to survivors and unsung heroes, and some of my characters are exactly that. I love the age difference between Sam and Twyla, a true generation gap. She is bright, fearless, and introspective, but growing up in poverty and abuse has worn her down. Living on a waitress’s salary, Twyla struggles to pay her bills and care for her 10-year-old half-brother. When her life is threatened, she takes an impulsive gamble on a talkative older customer (Sam) who promises her $20,000 if she’ll house-sit his isolated cabin on Glass Mountain that is no stranger to black bears, snowstorms, secrets, and silent watchers. 

Everyone likes to tell stories, but only some write them down. If an idea or image or experience or memory keeps tapping you on the shoulder, pour a glass of wine, pull up a chair, and listen. It might just spark your next poem, short story, or novel. I don’t know where stories come from, but, like poems, it must be a magical place. When your story begins to have a heartbeat and breathe on its own, take your time, and enjoy the journey. 

~Laura Treacy Bentley

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GLASS MOUNTAIN

Twenty-one-year-old waitress Twyla Townsend struggles to pay her bills on time and care for her 10-year-old half-brother, so when her life is threatened, she takes an impulsive gamble on a talkative old customer named Sam who promises her $20,000 if she’ll house-sit his isolated cabin on Glass Mountain that is no stranger to black bears, snowstorms, secrets, and silent watchers.

A heck of a good tale about tenacity, resilience, and the choices we make. I read Glass Mountain in one sitting, and from the first page I was rooting out loud for the characters.

–Jeannette Walls, Author of The Glass Castle

Like the prospectors of old, Laura Treacy Bentley finds gold in the hills – in the rugged, distant places on the far horizon. The treasure lies in her stories. You’ll love Twyla Townsend, the unforgettable heroine of Bentley’s new novel. Filled with heart and soul and sass, Twyla discovers strength and peace – and solves a mystery – in a remote cabin in this warm, funny, captivating tale.

— Julia Keller, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Killing in the Hills

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Laura Treacy Bentley is an internationally published writer who was born in Hagerstown, Maryland. She has lived most of her life in Huntington, West Virginia, and divides her time between West Virginia and a cabin in Western Maryland. Laura is the author of a poetry collection, Lake Effect, a psychological thriller set in Ireland, The Silver Tattoo, a picture book, Sir Grace and the Big Blizzard, and a poetry/photography chapbook, Looking for Ireland: An Irish-Appalachian Pilgrimage. She received a Fellowship Award for Literature from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts, and her work has been featured on the websites of A Prairie Home Companion, Poetry Daily, O Magazine, and Publishers Weekly. She served as the writer in residence for three years at the Marshall University Writing Project and taught creative writing at the 2013 West Virginia Governor’s School for the Arts at Davis & Elkins College. Her work has been published in the United States and Ireland in journals such as The New York Quarterly, Art Times, Poetry Ireland Review, Antietam Review, Rosebud, blink, Ginseng, Wind, The Stinging Fly, Kestrel, ABZ, Crannog, Now & Then, 3×10 plus, The New York Quarterly, Art Times, The Southern Poetry Anthology, Still, Goldenseal, and The Windward Review, among many others, including a number of anthologies. One of her poems is featured on a poster published by the Greenbank Observatory in Pocahontas County in West Virginia and another poem was displayed in a city bus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Laura read with Ray Bradbury in 2003 and signed her books with Nora Roberts at her Turn the Page Bookstore in 2017. Her latest novel, Glass Mountain, is a contemporary suspense novel published by Henlo Press.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing