Local author's 'Coldwater' offers tale of renewal in small New Mexico town

Emily Priddy, author of the newly released book "Greetings from Coldwater," said she has been carrying the main character, Sierra, with her since she was a teenager.

"The central character has been floating around in my head since I was a sophomore in high school," Priddy said.

About five years ago, while visiting the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, New Mexico, the state in which the fictional story is set, Priddy noticed an old Volkswagen Microbus, and it struck her as the kind of thing Sierra would like.

That was the catalyst that spurred Priddy into action on her mission of completing the book.

From there, she started a blog, posting daily entries for a year, all written from Sierra's point of view, as if she -- not Priddy -- were the blogger.

Priddy holds a copy of her book, "Greetings from Coldwater." (glandberg@semissourian.com)

"I let the story go where it would," she said.

After the year of blogging, Priddy, a copy editor at the Southeast Missourian, said she had compiled chapters that, after four years of revisions, coalesced into a book.

One of the major revisions was a shift in the point-of-view from first to third person, a challenging undertaking, but one that expanded the plot, she said.

The result is a haunting tale of Sierra, a young photojournalist who purchases a ramshackle motel, The Tumbleweed, in the made-up town of Coldwater, New Mexico.

The Tumbleweed is on the famed Route 66, the federal highway that opened in 1926, running from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Author Emily Priddy poses for a photo Wednesday. (Glenn Landberg)

The road was decommissioned in 1985, and since its closure as a federal highway, many of the local enterprises along it, which depended on tourist dollars, went out of business.

It was during a stay in one of the real motels along Route 66 that Priddy said the character of Miss Shirley, the terminally ill owner of The Tumbleweed from whom Sierra purchases it, came to life.

"Initially, Miss Shirley was not a major character, but fiction is a weird thing," she said. "Your characters are not always completely under your control."

Priddy knows firsthand about Route 66 and the mom-and-pop motels that suffered because of its closure, as she has traveled to the area many times during the past 15 years, she said.

"It's gorgeous," she said. "The scenery is amazing."

Sierra stumbles on The Tumbleweed while on a journey to scatter her father's ashes. She renovates the place, and forges a new life in Coldwater.

Through this experience, Sierra finds peace, providing her with reconciliation and redemption from parts of her past.

The paperback book is available from Amazon.com for $13.99, which includes a free Kindle download. The Kindle version alone is $8.99.

Although this is her first novel, Priddy has published one book, "Route 66 for Kids," that is available for Kindle, also through Amazon.

"Greetings from Coldwater" is listed under the category of magical realism, and Priddy said selecting that category was tough.

"It's mysterious, but it's not a mystery," Priddy said.

The book demonstrates not only her ability as a writer, but also her skills as an artist -- the beginning of each chapter is illustrated with drawings by Priddy.

Her artistic ability has helped her with travel expenses from time to time, as she has traded her services as a muralist to the Blue Swallow Motel in exchange for lodging.

Priddy said completing the novel was cathartic, because it was a story she has had inside her for so long.

"I wrote it because I had to," she said.

Priddy was a journalist at the Tulsa World Newspaper before moving to Cape Girardeau to join the staff of the Southeast Missourian initially as a reporter.

For more information about "Greetings from Coldwater," visit www.tumbleweedmotel.com.