Meet the Author

Four selections by author, Jan Wright, are included in Whidbey Landmarks, Stories and Poems from Whidbey Island, an anthology by Whidbey Writers’ Group. Jan Wright was also the chief editor for this book.

A sneak preview from Jan’s story, “A Mighty Chunk of Land” . . .

               A shiver ran through the doublewide manufactured house, waking the elderly man in the dead of the night. Michael strained to hear undefined noises. He couldn’t quite place the source. Distant crashing waves coupled with snapping and shuddering sounds didn’t seem right. An edgy feeling of something out of order kept him alert.

Vibrations began again, stronger, louder this time. Michael picked up his cell phone and dialed one of his few trusted contacts, someone he thought might be awake and give him guidance, his landlady.

Preparing for the workday in distant Texas, she responded to him without hesitation, “Get out immediately. I’ll call 911 for you. Just go. NOW!”

Michael pulled on his sweatpants and hurried out of his house in the darkness, locking the door out of habit. He drove his truck forward until he heard . . . and felt . . . a loud, concussive wuff. In the beams of his headlights, the road ahead dropped out of sight. He threw his truck into reverse and stepped on the gas, watching a gigantic avalanche of warped earth uplift and transport his home in front of him. The house slid on its steel girders with the shifting and cracking ground. As the land moved, it pulled electric power poles down like dominoes, hurling them along with crashing trees. A massive relocation of terrain tore apart and destroyed the roadway, the only exit for vehicles. The old man, the sole observer, sat alone in his truck, trapped at the end of the road.

Jan Wright is a member of the Whidbey Writers Group which produced Whidbey Island, An Insider’s Guide. Seven authors and twelve photographers contributed to this stunning guide book for beautiful Whidbey Island in Washington State.

Here is an excerpt from her article about the town of Coupeville . . .

For a sense of how owners have successfully reimagined the use of these historic buildings, don’t miss a stop at the ice cream store at 21 NW Front Street. Built in 1890 and originally located on the water side of the street, it served as the Meat Market. Notice the false front addition, like many others on Front Street; it makes a small building seem more imposing. Purchased by an attorney, it became the Island County Abstract Company for preparing land title documents and was moved, as were several others, in 1910 to its current location across and at the other end of the street. At one point, the building housed Archie Poor’s barber shop, complete with a barber pole out front.

By 1969, the building was rented to Jim Stewart and became a seasonal ice cream store called Wet Whiskers, after a cat named Henry. It is said that Stewart could smell the cinnamon rolls being baked down the street at the Knead and Feed and purchased a peanut roasting machine to roast coffee beans to provide coffee to go with the bakery goods during the season when ice cream sales tapered off. However, Jim tells the story of two women who did his taxes offering him their donut recipe if he’d add coffee to his menu. So, on his way to optometry school in California, he stopped at a recommended coffee store and tasted his first good cup of coffee. From a humble and somewhat unlikely beginning, Jim and his brother, Dave, created a business in this building that sparked the specialty coffee culture and moved on to become Seattle’s Best Coffee.

The building has since contained an ice cream store in this location. After the addition of a concrete foundation, from 1983 - 1988 the ice cream business was owned and operated by a young girl who attended Coupeville High School. Eager to earn money for college, she and her family painted and remodeled the building when the Stewarts left. Kristen’s Ice Cream Parlor was renamed for Kristen Brown. However, on the front window, she included the outline of a cat with drips coming off its whiskers. During the winter months, the building also hosted the first video store in the region, and for a while it was known as the Hole in the Wall, serving pizza. Eventually, it became Kapaw’s Iskreme, with a cat paw in the logo.