Carla Hagen returns home to launch new book

Reposted from the Northern Light Region

by Julie Bergman, Editor

Award-winning author Carla Hagen chose Lake of the Woods County as the setting for her first book, Hand Me Down My Walking Cane, released ten years ago.

And, it is where she returned to launch the book’s sequel, Muskeg, earlier this month.

A native of Baudette and 1968 graduate of Baudette High School, Hagen’s roots are deep in Lake of the Woods County.

“In fiction, the most important part — to me — is place. I am so wedded to this place,” Hagen said of

Lake of the Woods County.

The book launch was held at the Lake of the Woods Historical Society where Hagen read a few sections of Muskeg and answered questions from the audience.

It was standing-room only and Hagen was happy to see many of her old friends, family, classmates and even one of her former teachers (Joanne Fieldseth) at the event.

Local readers of both of Hagen’s books can quickly identify with the places described in poetic detail. Baudette plays a central role as does Faunce, Williams and Oak Island along with the surrounding area.

Both books are set in the 1920s and 1930s and the Relocation Administration’s resettlement of the Faunce area is central to both themes.

Muskeg takes place after the initial resettlement but explores the “hold-outs” who refused to leave the

area that is now Beltrami Island State Forest as well as the town of Faunce that quickly became a ghost town after the government relocated most of the families to other parts of the County.

Hagen picked up on a few of her secondary characters from Hand Me Down My Walking Cane to play center stage in Muskeg which is both a historic love story and an engaging thriller.

She is presently working on the third in the series which will complete the trilogy.

Long time coming

Shortly after Hand Me Down My Walking Cane was published, Hagen was promoted at the Hennepin

County Attorney’s office. That promotion meant more responsibility at work and less time

for writing.

She did find time to work on a few new books but ‘they just didn’t feel right,’ she said.

In 2017 Hagen retired from her 31-year career practicing law. She turned her attention to writing, a

hobby-turned-passion.

Her writing returned Lake of the Woods County and the characters of her first book.

The writing of Muskeg took many twists and turns, Hagen said. Although she had the beginning and the end, the characters developed and morphed as she wrote. It’s a phenomenon many writers experience and Hagen said it is almost as if the characters ‘take over the story.’

Even to her, the middle became somewhat of a ‘swampy suspense while the book progressed.

Credits early education

Carla Hagen points to Esther Carlson, a teacher she had while in school in Baudette, as a major influence on her writing career.

‘She was the most remarkable woman,’ Hagen said. ‘But for her, I wouldn’t get the architecture of

writing.’

Carlson, a survivor of the 1910 fire in Baudette, shared stories of that fateful event with her students, piquing Carla’s interest to dig further into the area’s history.

Ironically, Carlson also taught Carla’s mother, Elnora Bixby, herself a published author (North of

Nowhere).

‘She may have influenced my mother as well,’ Hagen said of Esther Carlson.