Each day we highlight one of the 36 finalists leading up to the April 8 announcement of the Minnesota Book Awards, presented by Education Minnesota. Today we feature 2017 Genre Fiction finalist:
Rise of the Spring Tide by James Stitt
Self-published
Category Sponsor: Macalester College
Shikha lives a lonely life, but not quite solitary. Inside her, something slumbers, while her sister Faria, half a world away, can hear her thoughts and feel her emotions. As a vagabond geneticist who has bounced from institution to institution, she sits on the cusp of discovering the mystery of her own DNA. Her sister has traversed the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent collating local myths and researching ancient cultures. Their quest, spanning 400 years, has led them on a trail that has both been intentionally obscured, yet seemingly left for them to discover. Loosely structured along the lines of a diary, Rise of the Spring Tide moves from past to present and back again, building to its final crescendo.
About the Author:
James Stitt has lived on the right, left and middle of the U.S. but he and his family found home in Saint Paul, where they have dwelled for over a decade. Trained as a scientist, his educational background is in Physics and Biology, with minor departures into History and Archeology. His works seek to explore the intuitive and unconscious knowledge of the ancients, who for millennia, embedded their observations of the celestial movements, the seasons, the cycles of birth, death and rebirth into myth and story. James hopes to reintroduce these myths and their connective relationships across cultures to a broader audience – within the context of engaging, approachable fiction. He is also the author of several articles in atmospheric science and remote sensing. James rails against nature itself to keep his 1968 Land Rover free of rust, desperately misses the ocean, blogs on WordPress, and can be found @stittwords.