Ed's Big Adventure

A bunch of years ago I received an artist fellowship grant to write a book about, “Living locally.” $7,000 meant the world as I entered the long winter, my first season of hard-core farming concluded. I thought my second book would be easier. Quicker.

Problem was, our family needed to build a sustainable life. Forging connection with place and people was far more complex than I ever imagined, particularly beginning from scratch, as I was.

Arriving at bone and gristle, Cubicle Land had digested all the tasty bits. Spewed out, I washed up on the shores of a wasteland without any tangible or transferrable skills, despite years of education (yes, graduate school).

Banishment from the pixelated world of Corporate America launched a pilgrimage into the real world.

Writing this book required eight years of sacrifice, alternating between mountain-top joys and the deepest darkness of despair. The discoveries have been profound, particularly while reliving them this past handful of trips around the sun during the refining process, as the work was distilled to the essential.

It feels insane to hold something like this in for eight years. Just three people have read it, and I’ve argued with them all. I’m eager to release this into the wider conversation about meaningful work, contributing value to the world, partaking in the bounty of riches all around us through neighboring, and so much more. The massive scope of this work was impossible for a bumbler like me to manage efficiently. Like a sculptor uncovering beauty one strike of hammer and chisel at a time, we’ve finally pulled away the excess.

It helped to split the book into five parts.

Act 1: You can’t think yourself out of a cubicle.

Act 2: Close Encounters (getting around other weirdos unfit for the cubicle)

Act 3: Never let a good depression go to waste.

Act 4: Entering the Story

Act 5: The wind of the storm fills our sails

While perfection wasn’t attainable, the story is spectacular. It’ll prove useful in helping people connect brain and body as a means of moving forward, provide inspiration to delight in the talents of neighbors while overlooking our many differences, learn to live within limits and even cherish them, encourage risk and learn from failure, cultivate eccentricities rather than flatten them out, navigate a midlife crisis or maybe even prevent one, developing a household economy, and so much more. For others it’ll be simple entertainment, and that’s ok.

Achieving the artist’s mindset in a world designed for practicality and efficiency is no picnic. After much struggle, one finally arrives at a point where art is an inescapable outcome.

I still haven’t received the physical book (a hundred are in some stage of the assembly line), but a handful of you will be receiving it today (two weeks before me). I’m coveting reviews, conversation, and genial arguments! I couldn’t hold this thing in for even another day. There’s so much in here to provoke discussion, and varying opinions of the well-lived life, practically working out our giftedness in the world, etc.

It was strange to walk away from a readership that I suppose reached into the thousands early on in this journey. Clicks and likes do not feed a family. Desperation imposed focus.

Since I must rebuild that platform, I wasn’t comfortable emailing bookstores and such. In a couple weeks I’ll just walk in and hand them copies. The cover, painted by my wife and bearing the endorsement of Leif Enger, should intrigue the Zenith Bookstore, and The Bookstore at Fitger’s. I also hope to move a couple dozen copies at the Duluth Grill and maybe even the Whole Foods Co-op alongside our microgreens. Your help and word-of-mouth are essential. Perhaps you’re in a book club? Contact me for bulk ordering options direct from the author.

I’ll conclude with Leif Enger’s hard-earned endorsement, arrived at after years of discussion:

Eddy Gilmore grows brilliant sprouts – vivid, spicy microgreens he nourishes through the dark Duluth winters (he plays them vinyl records). But the other thing Eddy cultivates, with great deliberation, is the occasional candid and scrupulous memoir. Lit Up opens with a startling mid-life derailment, then gets its feet on the ground and plunges into the search for local, creative, joyful work. The result is wry and forthright and in a way quite fearless. Lit Up has dirt on its elbows and a wink in its eye – a neighborly book if there ever was one.

This activity is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.