“Sister Stella Seams Serene,” covers the events that transpired between Talbott and her host family while she was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa.
In 2001, at 60 years of age, Starley Talbott joined the Peace Corps and was stationed in the northwest province of South Africa, where she was a school and community resource volunteer
Former journalist has book signing in Laramie
By Aaron LeClair
Boomerang Staff Writer
A former Wyoming resident and Saratoga Sun journalist will have a book signing in Laramie next week for her debut travel book.
Starley Talbott, an award-winning freelance writer residing in Colorado, will host a book signing at the Grand Newsstand at 1 p.m. Friday for “Lasso the World: A Western Writer’s Tales of Folks Around the Globe.”
The book is a collection of short, first-person essays about the diverse people — and their cultures — whom Talbott met during her world travels. Each essay is a chapter for a total of 18 chapters.
Chapter 1, titled “Sister Stella Seams Serene,” covers the events that transpired between Talbott and her host family while she was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa.
The subsequent chapters include Talbott’s accounts of a Tswana wedding ceremony, her escorting a friend to Alaska’s Denali National Park for summer work, and her time spent in Guadalajara, Mexico.
In addition to faraway locales, Talbott writes about places close to home, like Pearl, Colo. (a “forgotten mountain jewel” two miles from the Wyoming border), and about local people, like Dan Wallis — a scuba diving Wyoming rancher from Pass Creek outside Saratoga.
Chapter 18, “Letters from Australia,” ends the book with a printing of the letters sent between June 1990 to July 2004 between Talbott’s family and their friends in Australia.
In addition to the book’s first-person narrative, Talbott includes at least one photo for each chapter for a total of 24 throughout the 143-page book.
The inspiration for “Lasso the World,” as well as Talbott’s life philosophy, came from James Michener’s memoir “The World is My Home.” She is hopeful that people who read her book will receive the same message.
“I want people to realize that it is a big world,” she said.
Talbott, who grew up on a ranch north of Cheyenne, left Wyoming in 1987 for graduate school in Reno, Nev., after attending the University of Wyoming.
After spending eight years in Reno working for the Agricultural Statistical Service, Talbott embarked on her world travels in 1995.
In 1996, she moved to Guadalajara, then back to Texas a short time thereafter.
In 2001, at 60 years of age, Talbott joined the Peace Corps and was stationed in the northwest province of South Africa, where she was a school and community resource volunteer.
Two years later, after returning to the United States for cataract surgery, Talbott returned to South Africa. It was then that she attended the Tswana wedding ceremony featured in chapter 2 of “Lasso the World.”
With wanderlust still coursing through her veins, Talbott traveled to Peru last year, where she taught English for three months.
“Most of my travels … have included doing volunteer work,” she said.
Talbott has been writing for more than 30 years. Her work has been published in numerous newspapers and magazines, including the Empire Magazine, Wyoming Rural Electric News, Stockgrowers Cow Country Magazine, Livestock Market Digest, Texas Coop Power Magazine and the Saratoga Sun.
It was at the Saratoga Sun that Talbott — whose degree was in home economics — learned how to observe, report and write over a 10-year period.
“We did everything,” she remembered fondly. “I wrote sports, I wrote columns, I wrote everything.”
Talbott credits her journalism background for giving her the tools to write her book.
“I learned my writing skills on the job,” she said.
Not one to stay anywhere for too long, Talbott plans to travel abroad in the fall for another humanitarian mission.
“I plan to go to China in October to teach English,” she said.
Her next book will feature a historic ranch in southern Wyoming.
