Country Living

In this second collection of stories, Sullivan writes about the human condition as it plays out in the northern California countryside. Her characters encounter disaster and fulfillment, self discovery and delusion, love lost and found, with dogs, horses and the elements coming onstage amid vineyards and hillsides of oak. Tension mounts and roles reverse as a rattlesnake strikes. Freezing temperatures threaten a vineyard and a marriage. A hiker disappears. A pilot’s career is at stake when a man dangles below a hot air balloon. A horse stampedes toward a child testing a father’s love. Always present are the beauty and challenges of country living.

Jennifer Sullivan Buchwald-Baerwald grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas but has spent much of her adult life in California. Professor of Physiology Emeritus, UCLA School of Medicine, and former Associate Director, UCLA Brain Research Institute, she and her husband exchanged urban academia for the adventure of living on 80 acres in northern California. She also exchanged writing fact for fiction. Her first novel, "The Levee", was published in 2013 and a short story collection, "Afterthoughts", was published in 2014. Other short stories have appeared in Thema Literary Magazine, Tiny Lights Publications, and Uncorked: A Literary Harvest. She has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and has received the Jessamine West Award for Fiction and the California Writers' Award.