Ryan Ratliff lives in the small town of Strawberry*, Arizona. And though it is not a mining town, and rather than desert, is surrounded by mountains perforated with pines, it is, in some ways, similar to the fictional town of Bowling. Primarily in that it’s small and is located in Arizona. Here he writes, works, and like many, sometime after the sun sets, he sleeps.
* After gold was discovered in this mountainous area around 1875 an influx of bright-eyed settlers swarmed the area in search of hill-born riches, later joined by Mormon settlers around 1878. In the town’s infancy, wild strawberries could be found in great quantities, scattered throughout the area and thus the plant-spawned, rose-related, non-berry fruit became the obvious choice for the town’s namesake (to all except Fred, who thought the town should be called Fossil Hills, not because of the fossils found in the area, but because he predicted that in later years, the greater population of the town would be people over the age of sixty). Unfortunately, most of the wild strawberries went the way of these early settlers; they are dead.
* After gold was discovered in this mountainous area around 1875 an influx of bright-eyed settlers swarmed the area in search of hill-born riches, later joined by Mormon settlers around 1878. In the town’s infancy, wild strawberries could be found in great quantities, scattered throughout the area and thus the plant-spawned, rose-related, non-berry fruit became the obvious choice for the town’s namesake (to all except Fred, who thought the town should be called Fossil Hills, not because of the fossils found in the area, but because he predicted that in later years, the greater population of the town would be people over the age of sixty). Unfortunately, most of the wild strawberries went the way of these early settlers; they are dead.
