Yvonne Wakefield, also known as Yvonne Pepin-Wakefield, is an internationally exhibited artist and published author who lives and works from a home and studio on an Oregon-side shore of the Columbia River. Both of her books, “Suitcase Filled with Nails: Lesson Learned from Teaching Art in Kuwait,” and “Babe in the Woods: Building a Life One Log at a Time,” are available in print, digital and audio formats and have been the focus of film, television, and radio interviews across the country, including Rick Steves’ NPR program. They have also been reviewed in print and electronic media, and incorporated into college curricula. In 2018, Yours in Sisterhood, a documentary, premiering at the Berlineal, included an interview with Yvonne at her log cabin with filmmaker Irene Lusztig. “Babe in the Woods: Self Portrait” is the second book in her three-book series that chronicles her over four-decade-long relationship with her wilderness log cabin. “Babe in the Woods: Self Portrait” is releasing October 26, 2021. (Yvonne Wakefield, 2021)

The first book, “Babe in the Woods: Building a Life One Log at a Time” was recently re-released. The first edition received acclaim and outstanding reviews. In it, Wakefield strikes out on her own as an 18-year-old orphan, with a chainsaw and an axe, to build a log cabin in the Oregon woods. The second book in the series, “Babe in the Woods: Self Portrait,” follows Wakefield as an artist as she continues to learn to live with the uncertainties of the wilderness – such as experiences with bears – while independently building her second log structure and exercising her artistic skills. Over forty years later, both the cabin walls and the author show signs of weathering, but both remain rooted in a place of peace, quiet, beauty and repose.

Of her series, Yvonne says, “Whether it is one book or the entire series, it is for anyone who wants to read a story that is simply told about surviving the wilderness within and outside of oneself. I wrote the series because one book could not contain my over a four-decade-long relationship with this wilderness, and the cabin.”

Beyond her time in the woods, Yvonne delves into her younger years and life as an orphan. For most of her childhood, Yvonne floated about in a Catholic Middle-Class system. Detailing her ongoing sexual, physical, psychological and financial manipulation and abuse, she explores the important differences between caring and grooming that she was unable to differentiate as a child. Once Yvonne was able to build the cabin and reflect with her art, this distinction came to light. Follow Yvonne Wakefield in her triumph over adversity, and her experiences in the rawness of nature.

“Babe in the Woods: Self Portrait” by Yvonne Wakefield is available for pre-order on Amazon.
ISBN: 978-1737459118
Price: $16.95
Publisher: Pepin Enterprises