Iris Graville

 

Photo by Steve Horn

Iris Graville is a writer, teacher, editor, independent publisher, bookbinder, and retired nurse from Lopez Island, WA. Her profiles and personal essays have been published in national and regional journals and magazines. She holds a Master’s of Nursing degree from the University of Washington and an MFA in Creative Writing from the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts where she served as nonfiction editor for Soundings Review. Iris is also the  publisher for SHARK REEF online literary magazine. She blogs regularly about writing and spiritual matters.

As a writer, Iris strives to give voice to the untold stories of ordinary people. She had her first taste of the thrill of helping people tell their stories as a feature writer for her high school newspaper in a small town in southern Illinois. Years later, as a nurse in Indiana and Washington, she listened to patients in hospital rooms, exam rooms, homes, and schools and experienced an uncommon intimacy as they shared their fears, hopes, grief, and pain.

Her first book, Hands at Work—Portraits and Profiles of People Who Work with Their Hands, received numerous accolades including a Nautilus Book Gold Award, Independent Publishers Award, and an Indie Next Generation Book Award.

Hands at Work was inspired by a showing of Summer Moon Scriver’s black-and-white photographs of hands. Scriver’s images of strong, weathered, soiled, muscled hands digging potatoes, knitting, kneading dough, and spinning wool suggested a passion for the kinds of work that have become rare for many Americans. This hard-cover coffee table book is available at Lopez Bookshop, other independent booksellers, and online at http://handsworking.com.

 

Second Book Released October 2016

BOUNTY: Lopez Island Farmers, Food, and Community

This 124-page book combines photographs, profiles, and recipes to present an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of what it takes to bring food from earth to table on Lopez Island. Photography by Steve Horn, Summer Moon Scriver, and Robert S. Harrison; profiles by Iris Graville; recipes created by Chef Kim Bast. Available at Lopez Bookshop.

Book 3 Forthcoming September 2017

Iris’s memoir, Hiking Naked—A Quaker Woman’s Search for Balance, is a personal narrative of what she learned in the remote mountain village of Stehekin, WA about work, community, and leadings of the Spirit (as well as dealing with six feet of snow in the winter, ordering groceries by mail, and living without a telephone).

Scheduled for publication September 2017 by Homebound Publications

Available for pre-order now at Lopez Bookshop or Homebound Publications Online Store