Woodbury author Kerstin March offers an apt description of the June launch of her first novel, Family Trees. “It’s kind of like having a new baby and showing her off, hoping everyone will say how gorgeous she is,” she says. Fulfilling her dream of writing the story she’d imagined as a young girl, Family Trees explores the dynamic between a handsome and prominent young man who visits a small Wisconsin town on Lake Superior and meets a local woman, heir to her family’s small apple orchard. March was inspired by years of summers spent at her family home in the Apostle Islands.
“What started as a simple premise turned out to be a different story than I had originally sought to write,” says March, who was an English major at St. Olaf College. “While it is a ‘boy meets girl,’ the running theme is the ties that bind people to family. They come from polar opposites. But both of them are afraid of something, and it’s that, along with their obligation to family, that brings them together.”
March’s dream of writing a novel was put aside for years as her obligations to a career in public relations and raising her children, now 18, 15 and 9, took priority. It wasn’t until her youngest entered school five years ago that March decided it was now or never, and she set out to write a story that she’d had in her head since her early twenties.
“My goal was to put down the story for myself and my family and it would probably live under my bed, never see the light of day,” says March, who continued to hone her project, developing a network of other local writers to read work and give her advice. March soon realized the story might be halfway decent and decided to expand her goal, aiming to get the book sold to a reputable New York City publishing house. “I thought if I don’t try, I won’t know if I can do it,” she says.
March worked actively to seek her goal of publishing. She pitched her story concept to an agent she met at the University of Wisconsin‒Madison’s Writer’s Institute Conference in 2012. Nearly a year later, after completing the manuscript and sending it to the agent, she called to offer representation and March signed. “Each step was worthy of champagne and screaming,” she says.
In November 2013, March’s agent successfully sold Family Trees to Kensington Publishing in New York who bought the novel, as well as her second book unwritten, and an option for a third. The second book, titled Branching Out, is due out in November. Both books have also been sold to a German publisher for German translation and European distribution. “None of this happened by chance; I put a lot of work into each step in the writing process,” March says. “It’s still very hard to believe it all turned out this way. I feel very grateful.”
In poetic synchronicity, March’s son Logan graduates from high school just days before her novel releases, marking the launch of two dreams she has birthed. “I’m very proud. I’m very proud of [Logan] and I am very proud of what I have been able to do for myself,” March says. “I’m going to feel like all of the work and worry, for both, is behind us. We’re going to celebrate for him and also it’s going to feel so cool when I walk into the Woodbury Barnes and Noble and see my book on the shelf.”
In addition to being a new novelist, March, a Stillwater native, has been a freelance writer for Woodbury Magazine; she’s also the editor of St. Croix Valley Magazine which launched in March.
Family Trees is available through online retailers nationally and locally at: the Woodbury Barnes and Noble and Valley Booksellers in Stillwater. Kerstin March is available to speak at local book clubs, book signings and speaking opportunities.
