Community News see more »

At a remarkable literary event last Tuesday, local author and poet Laurie Wagner Buyer entertained a capacity crowd at Fuel Coffee House with readings from her new book, When I Came West, “extra” stories not included in the book, and video clips of her life in the mountains from a Wyoming television station.

Laurie Wagner Buyer was born to an Air Force family in Edinburgh, Scotland. She attended schools in several states and in the Philippines. As a 20-year-old college student in the early 1970s, she made the almost earth-shaking decision to leave her comfortable suburban life to join a volatile survivalist, whom she knew only by a few weeks’ worth of ardent letters.

Her story is sometimes inspiring, sometimes disturbing, and always fascinating; her combination of reckless courage and terrified stubbornness wins the reader’s respect and admiration as the sheltered young girl becomes a self-sufficient “mountain woman” skilled in the art of wilderness survival. But her adventures go far beyond surviving, and a large part of the story is her growing love affair with the remote and wild surroundings.

Laurie is now married to W.C. Jameson, himself a noted author (and musician), and they live comfortably in Llano. You can often find her at the Fuel Coffee House, looking quite cultivated, charming and “respectable.” You’ll find a copy of her book there, too; if you read it, you’ll understand that there’s a lot more to Laurie Wagner Buyer than meets the eye.