The next day, she started writing the book, eventually steaming along at four hours of keyboard time a day.

"It literally lit a fire under me," Schofield Eaton said.

Her memoir, "Beyond Road's End," was published in May by Alaska Northwest Books. One of the state's leading experts on native flora, she also wrote "Discovering Wild Plants" and the pocket guide "Alaska's Wild Plants."

Schofield Eaton, 57, writes from the perspective of an ex-patriate Alaskan, but also one who has endured long winters season after season. Like Miranda Weiss' recent "Tide, Feather, Snow," "Beyond Road's End" begins with a couple moving to Kachemak Bay to start a new life. Its story spans a longer time, from 1979 when Schofield Eaton met Ed Schofield in New England and moved here in 1981, to the timber buyback in Kachemak Bay State Park in 1992.

It's also the love story of Jan and Ed and how they leave behind spouses and eventually create a life together in Alaska.

It's also a book about community and camaraderie, Schofield Eaton said -- an aspect about Alaska life not often seen in literature of the north. In a chapter about arriving in Homer, she writes of meeting Mossy Davidson the first day and lining up a caretaking position at Davidson's Swift Creek cabin.

"There's something I really miss about Alaska that I haven't found anywhere else, like getting to Homer and having a place to live to the end of the year -- the next day," Schofield Eaton said. "I feel the book is a tribute to everybody in our life who touched us."

As a nature writer, Schofield Eaton had to find a different voice for her memoir.

"It's so many new skills in it," she said. "When you're doing a memoir, you're recreating conversations as you remember them, but you also have to make them sound like the people."

Her friend Ellie Vande Visse makes a suggestion to help her find her voice, Schofield Eaton writes in an introduction.

"Write like you're talking around the campfire," she quotes Vande Visse as saying.

With short chapters that could easily be read in a sitting, Schofield Eaton creates a casual, chatty voice. Her trick?

"You have to treat yourself as another character," she said. "If you're writing about yourself, it gets really uncomfortable."

Moving to New Zealand, where she now runs a B&B with her husband Barry Eaton in Motueka on the south island, gave her some geographic distance, too.

"I think that helped, having the detachment from Alaska," she said.

Schofield Eaton interviewed friends on visits back to Alaska. She also used journal entries from people who stayed at her Rocky River cabin, as well as other sources.

"The guest book was full of other people who had come into our lives," Schofield Eaton said of Alaskans she had met while living here.

For the book she had to keep a tight focus and limit the cast of characters.

"The characters in it had to be people who would re-enter the tale," she said. "You'd just lose people along the way. You had to hold the thread."

Writing "Beyond Road's End" helped Schofield Eaton turn a page on her life, she said.

"It feels like resolution," Schofield Eaton said. "At least now I feel like I can start a new chapter, with completion of that chapter."

Although she misses Alaska, she also enjoys the more moderate New Zealand climate -- the gardening, the plants. She expects to return to Alaska for short visits, but not return to live full time.

"I'm so glad I've lived all the experiences I've had there," Schofield Eaton said. "I'm not done having experiences with Alaska, but I'm enjoying growing citrus."

One of the founders with Ed Schofield of Kachemak Heritage Land Trust, Schofield Eaton will donate 2 percent of her author's royalties to KHLT.

Michael Armstrong can be reached at michaelarmstrong.@homernews.com.