To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
Soren Kierkegaard

Copyright © , Paula Anita Walling. All rights reserved.

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Author Anita Alan’s Big Sur Inn: The Deetjen Legacy (Gibbs Smith) won the Gold Award for Best Non-fiction—West Pacific Region at the 2007 Independent Publisher Book Awards in New York City. Big Sur Inn travels back in time to reveal the history, legends, and storied past of a California institution. Sixteen poems by the great American poet Robinson Jeffers begin and end each of the eight chapters in the book—a volume designed to bring the warmth of Deetjen’s hearth into your home. National Endowment for the Arts and The Poetry Foundation recently chose Jeffers, Deetjen’s friend and Carmel Point neighbor in the 1920s and 1930s, as the national Big Read poet. Big Sur Inn couples the extraordinary Jeffers poems with fine art photography by Brooks Institute graduate and Big Sur native, Kodiak Greenwood. In 1990, the Department of the Interior recognized Big Sur Inn and its distinctive vernacular architecture by listing it on the National Register of Historic Places. Alan traces the Inn’s history from the poetic inspiration that compelled Helmuth Deetjen to journey from his native Norway to fulfill a lifelong dream—to make his home in the California redwoods. With his wife, Helen Haight Deetjen, he created an intimate refuge, not just for two, but also for travelers, artists, writers, and celebrities worldwide. Color and vintage photographs from the Inn’s beginning to the present guide you through its natural surroundings, cozy rustic rooms, and enchanting restaurant. Deetjen’s kitchen shares coveted recipes with the reader. Alan attended The New School in New York City, graduated from the University of Southern California, and received a Masters degree from Monterey Institute of International Studies. She has her home office on the Monterey Peninsula where she (Paula Anita Walling) taught kindergarten through third grade in Big Sur and Carmel, and freshman English in Pacific Grove, California. Anita Alan joined the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in 1990, and the Central Coast Writers Branch of the California Writers Club in 2003. She worked as a reporter, photographer, columnist, and editor for the Big Sur Gazette and The Coast Gazette. Alan writes the Travels to Norway page as Contributing Editor for Norwegian American Weekly.