Author soaked up coastal culture by watching, listening.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Diane Hammond, who describes herself as ``a nice Jewish girl from New York,'' learned about life in a small Oregon coastal town after she moved to Newport in 1984 from Washington, D.C.

Quickly realizing that the Oregonians she met were not kindly disposed toward newcomers from back East, she submerged her own identity and quietly watched and listened as her co-workers at Central Lincoln People's Utility District talked about their lives, which were so different from her own.

``They were good storytellers,'' she said. ``To me, it was one big story, with a new episode every day.''

What she soaked up during her five years at Central Lincoln PUD stayed with Hammond as she went on to become a spokeswoman for the Oregon Coast Aquarium and then the Free Willy Keiko Foundation. And it served her well when she began to write her first novel.

But the pressure of being "Keiko's press secretary" while dealing with multiple sclerosis pushed the book to the back burner for several years, only half finished.

By the time Hammond picked it up again, she had even forgotten some characters' names. But when she reread what she had written, the second half of the novel came together with "relative clarity and very little revision," and she finished it in roughly six months.

Hammond, who now lives in Tacoma, says "Going to Bend" was her "first mature attempt" at a novel. She had published several short stories over the years, but the idea of writing a novel spooked her for a long time, because the form required so much more continuity.

BOOK TOUR

Author Diane Hammond has readings scheduled in Eugene on Thursday and Bend on Saturday.