This is my friend, Wendy Welch. She is a storyteller, cultural ethnographer, professor, bookstore owner, and author. She crochets, sings, plays the harp, and canes chairs. She is basically an all-around superwoman.

History

I met Wendy about 15 years ago, in grad school at Memorial University of Newfoundland. She was a year ahead of me and getting her PhD in folklore, while I was going for my master’s. I don’t think we ever had classes together, but we’d see and talk to each other in the graduate student room. I didn’t really think we had too much in common at the time (maybe we didn’t talk enough to each other), but she was always quite nice.

Strangely enough, our biggest bond was probably the fact that we were Americans on this big Rock in the Atlantic Ocean. Two distinct (well, actually not so distinct at all) memories…