Think Out Loud

Oregon writer Debra Gwartney’s new book, “I Am a Stranger Here Myself” is one part memoir, one part pioneer history. She tells her own story interspersed with the story of the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains and give birth on the frontier. Her book explores the ideas of womanhood, place and belonging — in the context of white settlers who seized Native American lands and claimed them as their own.