When I was in high school, I didn’t know a lot of gay people.  For a young lesbian, that’s a hard place to be.  I used to read short stories from a book called, “Sweat,” written by a woman named Lucy Jane Bledsoe.

Lucy Jane Bledsoe

That name was stored in my subconscious, secured in a place of comfort, a place of belonging. 

I saw her name again recently, on the Facebook wall of a mutual friend.  And I thoght, “I know her.  How do I know her?”  And then it hit me.  Her name and words had kept me company for years.  She had a new book coming out.  One set in Antarctica.  Cool.

The world seems short on true adventurers.  Explorers of this world.  And then there’s Lucy.  According to her website:

Lucy has traveled to Antarctica three times, as a two-time recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Artists & Writers in Antarctica Fellowship and once as a guest on the Russian ship, the Akademik Sergey Vavilov. She is one of a tiny handful of people who have stayed at all three American stations in Antarctica. She has also stayed in a number of field camps, both on the coast and in the Transantarctic mountains, where scientists are studying penguins, climate change, and the Big Bang.

Who does that?  Lucy does.  That’s who.