Sara McCauley
Catch Rides by Sara McAulay
Knopf, New York, 1975, cover art Barbara Sandler, 256 pp.
"The boots, the jacket, the heavy velvet-
The uniform; call it what you will, I'd prefer a suit of lights, but horse
shows are tradition bound,
even here. And no matter, I'm a professional. I could go
about my business stark-
to that". Annie Gordon -
turns twenty five, the summer
she finally has to stop running. She has headed west, away from
her "good" opportunities
and ... her "fine" old Virginia family. She has ended up in California
making her
living at what she can do best. She's catching rides in bush-
run a camp for horse-
Sara McAulay was born in Washington, D.C. She grew up in northern Virginia, l
ike
her heroine in Catch Rides, Annie. She went to seven colleges, with five different
majors, and graduated from Calilfornia State University. She has also written two
plays for children, and during the 1970s was a Fellow in Fiction Writing at the Squaw
Valley Community of Writers. From rom 1984 to 2008 she was based at CSU East Bay,
where she taught creative writing and literature until 2003, when she retired. This
she says, is a state that “suits her very, very well.” So well that she now welds
“rusty washing machine drums onto the hoods of junked cars.” And why not? She and
her partner have dogs and cats: and they have a blog.
Finding the book: very good first editions can be pricey. The book is no longer in print, and was not published in the UK.
Links and sources:
Biographical information
Her dog’s blog
Dustjacket of Catch Rides
Many thanks to Susan Bourgeau for all her help with this
page.
Bibliography -
