Ashcraft, Tami Oldham 1960-
Ashcraft, Tami Oldham 1960-
PERSONAL:
Born 1960, in San Diego, CA; married; husband's name Ed; children: two daughters.
ADDRESSES:
Home—Friday Harbor, WA. E-mail—[email protected].
CAREER:
Writer and sailor.
WRITINGS:
(With Susea McGearhart) Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea, Hyperion (New York, NY), 2002.
Also author of screenplay version, with Susea McGearhart, of Red Sky in Mourning.
SIDELIGHTS:
Tami Oldham Ashcraft has decades of experience sailing the open waters, having accumulated more than 50,000 offshore miles. She is also a licensed captain of one-hundred-ton vessels. Her love of sailing was challenged, however, in the early 1980s when she and her fiancé, while delivering a yacht from Tahiti to San Diego, encountered a category-four hurricane. Ashcraft's partner was lost at sea and the boat was virtually destroyed. Her survival story was self-published and later purchased by Hyperion and distributed as Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea.
In an interview on her home page, Ashcraft explained how the event changed her life: "I'm much more cautious now. I guess it does stem from fear. I do not take any chances at all. I'm the first to say reduce sail. I will not cruise outside of cruising seasons."
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews simply described the story as "movingly told." A reviewer in Publishers Weekly noted that "some will find the self-consciously inspirational tone of the book a little too saccharine, but others will appreciate Ashcraft's remarkable courage." A critic writing on the MostlyFiction Web site commented that "although the story is compelling … the writing style is a little annoying in its over simplicity." Maude McDaniel, reviewing the story on BookPage, called it "a walloping good yarn that grabs your heart and tweaks your spirit."
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:
PERIODICALS
Booklist, May 1, 2002, Gavin Quinn, review of Red Sky in Mourning: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Survival at Sea, p. 1500; September 15, 2002, Brad Hooper, "Top 10 Literary Travel Books," p. 204.
Kirkus Reviews, April 1, 2002, review of Red Sky in Mourning, p. 464.
Publishers Weekly, October 2, 2000, John F. Baker, "Half-Million for Sea Saga," p. 14; June 3, 2002, review of Red Sky in Mourning, p. 82.
ONLINE
BookLoons,http://www.bookloons.com/ (March 21, 2007), Mary Ann Smyth, review of Red Sky in Mourning.
BookPage,http://www.bookpage.com/ (December 2, 2002), Maude McDaniel, review of Red Sky in Mourning.
MostlyFiction,http://mostlyfiction.com/ (December 2, 2002), review of Red Sky in Mourning.
Story Circle Network,http://www.storycircle.org/ (December 2, 2002), Linda Wisniewski, review of Red Sky in Mourning.
Tami Oldham Ashcraft Home Page,http://www.tamiashcraft.com (March 21, 2007), author biography.