Alison smith author biography

Chapter One

I started skating at nearly the same time I took my first steps. Mother taught me how on the outdoor rink at the local park. Every weekend she took me there and we skated in circles the wobbly gait of the swamp-skater, pushing off with the serrated tip.

Name All the Animals: A Memoir by Alison Smith | Goodreads

The spring after I turned fifteen, the ice melted as it did every April, and still I showed up, like clockwork, my skates slung over my shoulder. I watched the ice dissolve back into Allen's Creek. Mother drove down and met me, popped open the passenger-side door of the family camper-van, and said, "Hop in. I've got a surprise for you." That day I skated on an indoor rink for the first time.

Meet Alison | Alison Smith

There was something in the long mile of that white room, in the coolness of the air and the smell of the ice -- like the inside of a tin cup -- and all the while outside I knew the sun was tapping on the roof, warming the tiles, begging to be let in. I was hooked. I joined the rink's figure skating academy.

T Alison Smith - Lannan Foundation RYCOM