Oddly, when you write a book, one of the first things you have to decide is when to begin the story.
Tradition would have it that I should start with Jim Tanner in his youth, his background and why he went to Cornell.
Instead, I chose to jump into the Tanner/ivorybill story quickly, opening with Mason Spencer's shooting a Ghost Bird in 1932, thus proving it was not an apparition. I had a big story to tell and precious little space to waste. My contract called for a 300-page manuscript, no more but it could be less.
Originally, I decided to cover Tanner's early years as a flashback somewhere later in the book until I realized that Phillip Hoose had already done a good job of recording Jim's childhood in his wonderful book, The Race to Save the Lord God Bird.
In September 2006, I met Hoose when he spoke at Ijams Nature Center where I work. At the time, Nancy and I were beginning to pull together the initial research on my book. UT Press had just given me the go ahead to begin.
I did travel to Homer, New York and locate Tanner's childhood home to get a true sense of his roots but it turned out to be more for me than you the reader.
Pictured above: Nancy Tanner, author Phillip Hoose and myself.
