Look and Listen
Biography
Jodi Auborn was born in Ticonderoga, NY, but spent most of her life in the small upstate NY towns of Wilton, Hadley, and Lake Luzerne. She graduated from Hadley-Luzerne High School in 1995, and then received a Liberal Arts degree from Adirondack Community College in 1998. She has worked at a variety of jobs since then: parking attendant, grocery store clerk, animal caretaker, stablehand, campground attendant, and fruit packer. In 2006 she started “Views From the Backroads Photography,” selling her pictures in local craft shows. As far back as Elementary school, Jodi always enjoyed her class creative writing assignments, making up stories and poems in school and out. At age ten she began writing a short story about a girl and an abused horse. Over her school and college years, she developed it into a book which was finally published in 2009 as her first novel, “Stormwind of the North Country.” A memoir followed in 2011, and a year later, the sequel to “Stormwind,” was released: “Secrets of the North Country: The Hobo’s Story.” The author writes preteen novels, short stories, and poetry set in the Adirondack Mountains, and New England seaside. Many of her stories are about quirky girl characters trying to find their place in the world, while refusing to conform to what others think they should be. Horses and adventure often play a big part in the stories. Jodi is single and currently lives with her dog, Summer, two cats, Honey and Rio, a ferret named Buddy, and horse, Solomon. Her hobbies include reading, drawing and crafts, designing houses, camping and hiking, canoeing and sailing, horseback riding, gardening, and music. She also enjoys vacationing in Cape Cod, MA, and the coast of Maine. Visit her website at www.jodilauborn.webs.com.
Inspiration
My first novel, “Stormwind of the North Country,” was inspired by a strange and vivid dream I had one summer night when I was ten years old. Its sequel, “Secrets of the North Country,” was inspired by local news reports about an escaped convict who was on the loose during my freshman high school year. And my memoir, “The Forests I Called Home," was inspired by my life growing up in a small town in the Adirondack Mountains. In fact, my experiences in the woods and mountains where I grew up had the greatest influence on my writing. When I was ten years old, my parents built a log cabin on a wooded mountainside, which I describe in my memoir. To me, it was paradise: our house was surrounded by miles of forest, with no close neighbors. I loved exploring the woods and building hideouts, and most of all, riding my horse everyday, over abandoned logging roads and farm fields. I only lived in the cabin for four short, bittersweet years, but the times I spent there were, and still remain, a very big inspiration for my stories. Growing up, I was a shy and quiet kid, with only a few friends. I was a loner and daydreamer who liked to retreat into my own little world. While the other girls in my middle school class were getting into clothes and makeup, discovering boys, and starting to date, I had no interest in those things. I was more interested in upcoming family camping trips, and discovering the natural world around me. However, horses were my biggest love. The anticipation of getting my first horse, and then my heartbreak when she died after only two years together, formed the basis of so many of my stories. Kat, the main character of “Stormwind” and “Secrets of the North Country,” shares much of my own attitudes and experiences that I had growing up. When I was older, I visited the coast of Maine and spent a summer living in a campground in Cape Cod. That inspired me to write about ships, lighthouses, and fictional small towns on the New England coast. Most of these stories and poems, not yet published, have a ghostly or supernatural theme. Therefore, the places where I’ve lived and vacationed have inspired me the most.
