Michael N. McGregor

Tag: An Island to Myself

  • Free Author Talk at the University of Portland–5:30 p.m., Monday, October 27

    Free Author Talk at the University of Portland–5:30 p.m., Monday, October 27

    On Monday, October 27, I’ll be visiting the University of Portland as one of the featured authors in its 2025-26 Readings and Lecture Series.

    My first stop at the school will be an American Literature class, where I’ll do my best to answer student questions about my writing and literature in general. One thing we’ll surely talk about is my biography subject Robert Lax’s relationship with Jack Kerouac, whose writing they will have read.

    At 5:30, then, I’ll move to the UP Bookstore and read from the two books I published earlier this year–The Last Grand Tour and An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life–before talking about “writing about the human spirit across genres and divisions” and taking audience questions.

    The bookstore is located near the campus entrance at 5000 N. Willamette Blvd. The event is free and open to the public.

    If you live in Portland, I hope to see you there!

  • Listen: A Great Interview with Talk Radio Europe about “An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life”

    Listen: A Great Interview with Talk Radio Europe about “An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life”

    Hannah Murray, host, Talk Radio Europe

    On Tuesday, June 24, Hannah Murray of Talk Radio Europe interviewed me for 15 minutes about my new book, An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life. You can listen to the interview here:

    To learn more about Talk Radio Europe, click here.

    To order An Island to Myself, click on one of the links below:

    Bookshop.org

    Amazon

    “In this inspiring and hope-filled journey into the heart of solitude, McGregor takes us to the hinterlands of grace, and in the healing silence of a still heart and mind, we discover the antidote to a loneliness that plagues many of us these days, fed by consumption, competition, and a tendency to commodify relationships.”

    —Patrick Hannon, author of Sacrament: Personal Encounters with Memories, Wounds, Dreams, and Unruly Hearts

    “To dwell in solitude without feeling lonely, one must be open to a presence that’s inaccessible in the midst of even the dearest human companions. In search of that elusive presence, Michael N. McGregor has repeatedly taken leave from loved ones and workaday tasks, seeking stillness in a library, a park, a rustic cabin, a borrowed apartment, a Greek island, and other retreats. Over the course of decades, from restless youth to grateful elder, he has gathered insights into his character, his values, his past and possible futures. By accompanying him in his search, we may be inspired to undertake solitary sojourns of our own.”

    —Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination

    “Solitude is one of the most misunderstood words in the English language. Many of us would prefer to avoid being alone. But when we allow solitude to take us by the hand, we realize it is a guide, a doorway we step through to discover the most consequential person in our life: our self. As we follow along in this page-turner of a book—from the Greek island of Patmos to the San Juan Islands, Whidbey Island, and a myriad of other places McGregor has experienced solitude—we start to understand that being still is also a way to keep moving, to keep going deeper into the discovery of our true purpose and being.”

    —Judith Valente, former faith and values correspondent for PBS-TV, author of The Art of Pausing and How to Be

    “I finished An Island to Myself within the whirlwind of my screen-mediated over-extended life, one where my harried attention leaps quickly here then there and back again. Yet McGregor’s book is not finished with me. Its steady openhearted questions about fulfillment, gratitude, beauty, love, and meaning still call to me from within. His patient and humble account of the difficulties and rewards of seeking solitude, not in order to be alone and separate, but ultimately to love and connect more fully and more deeply with life, is one I won’t soon forget.”

    —David Naimon, co-author of Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations On Writing, and host of the radio show and podcast, Between The Covers

    “Michael N. McGregor’s forty-year courtship of solitude is exacting, frank about the paradoxes of the journey, utterly determined to see his investigation through, and faithful to a helpful decision to include the journey’s contradictions. Bolstered by a counterpoint of epigraphs on solitude ranging from Wordsworth to Einstein, Epictetus to Proust, Anne Frank to Susan Sontag, Joan Didion to Rumi, Franz Kafka to bell hooks, and more, journey’s end brings McGregor to conclusions that are thoroughly flight-tested, uniquely his own, and invaluable to lovers of solitude counter-balanced with active lives.”

    —David James Duncan, author of The Brothers K and Sun House

    “Michael N. McGregor’s musing memoir An Island to Myself is about using the practice of solitude to develop personal authenticity and enhanced creativity … about a transformative search for meaning among the small, often overlooked everyday moments.”

    —Foreword Reviews, May-June 2025

  • I’ll be the Featured Author in Tonight’s Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Event

    I’ll be the Featured Author in Tonight’s Cascadia Writers-in-Conversation Event

    My new book, An Island to Myself: The Place of Solitude in an Active Life, won’t officially be released until next Tuesday, May 13, but the first event focused on it will take place tonight. I’ll be the featured author in the Writers-in-Conversation series at the Cascadia Art Museum in Edmonds, WA.

    I established the Writers-in-Conversation series last year to focus on Northwest authors, many of whom haven’t received the attention they deserve. Normally, I choose them and interview them. For the last event in our first season, however, the museum has asked me to be interviewed. And the museum’s executive director, Sally Ralston, will do the interviewing.

    You’ll find a write-up about the evening and my writing career on WritingtheNorthwest.com. To read more about the Writers-in-Conversation series and/or purchase tickets, click here.

    About the series in 2024-25

    In the first year of the series (August 2024-present), I’ve interviewed novelists Sharma Shields and Debra Magpie Earling, science writer Clayton Page Aldern, memoirist and journalist Putsata Reang, poet and memoirist Jessica Gigot, illustrator and children’s author Julie Kim, conversation advocate and nonfiction writer Mónica Guzmán, and fiction writer E. Lily Yu.

    We’ll be taking a summer break, but the series will return on September 11, featuring an exciting author from Oregon whose name will be revealed soon.

    If you live in the Seattle area, I hope to see you at the museum tonight!

    The Cascadia Art Museum is the only museum dedicated to artists and their works from the Pacific Northwest. Focused on visual art and design from 1860 to 1970, it is committed to the belief that recognizing previously neglected artists who made significant contributions to the region’s cultural identity gives us a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of Northwest art history. The Writers-in-Conversation series signals the museum’s desire to highlight underappreciated NW artists in literature as well.