Patrick Hutchison did what many people only dream of doing: He bought a ramshackle cabin in the woods and quit his day job as a copywriter in Seattle to renovate it. “I was just sort of going to a job that I didn’t really care about and coming home and, you know, eat, sleep, go to a job I didn’t really care about,” the 39-year-old Tacoma resident said in a phone interview. “I think I was looking for some other thing to grasp onto that kind of felt like I was doing something with my life that I was interested in or excited about or proud of.
” But while living his dream, he wrote about his six-year adventure, sending a friend in California tidbits every week about the latest in his remodeling adventure and reading about his friend’s work restoring an old boat. Those stories created the backbone for his debut memoir, “Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman,” released on Dec. 3 by St.
Martin’s Press. And thanks to Centralia’s Jan Leth, Hutchison will be a featured speaker at both the American Association of University Women’s (AAUW) Evening with Authors and the Southwest Washington Writers Conference in September. The Today Show anchors described Hutchison’s memoir as hilarious, touching and beautiful.
“It’s about fixing up a place, but it’s really about connecting with yourself and with nature,” bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald said on the show. The New York Times called the book “funny and thoughtful” while The Washingt.