William and Laura Rink are a Bellingham couple with a fine distinction: both are published authors, exploring history that has touched their lives and local surroundings.
Laura Rink has published poetry and essays influenced by nature, everyday life, and the writing process. She is currently writing a family memoir on the Armenian genocide, which her grandmother and two great aunts survived.
“I would say on a small scale, my work has been well received,” says Laura. “We have a really supportive community in Bellingham; there’s a lot of support [here] in a business that can be pretty competitive. I feel like there’s a lot of collaboration, a lot of support. People want to lift each other up.”
William Rink cofounded the Bellingham Railway Museum, covered in a previous WhatcomTalk article before its closure in 2020. He and founding member Karl Kleeman authored The Early Railroads of Whatcom County and Washington Territory, available at Village Books. More recently, he has written Telephone and Telegraph Stamps books, which catalogue rare postage stamps of this genre.
“Anytime we do a presentation on our local history book, railroad books, everybody just loves it,” William says. “It’s cool information about the area we live in and it’s always well received.”
Laura Rink
A longtime member of Red Wheelbarrow Writers (previously covered in WhatcomTalk), Laura has long pursued writing as a hobby.
“For me it’s like third grade,” says Laura. “Little House on the Prairie, you know: write about your life. I remember dressing up as Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott in elementary school ; I always wanted to be a writer. For me, most of it, it was just something I did on the side.”
Laura keeps a monthly blog on her portfolio. Her upcoming memoir on the Armenian genocide elaborates on her MFA thesis, balancing family history with the wider historical context from fiction and nonfiction.
“That has been like Peter Balakian’s Black Dog of Fate,” she says. “He wrote a memoir about his Armenian grandmother and parents. I did my critical paper for school on his book and others, about how to write and how to find the story in silence. Because my grandmother never really talked about it.”
William Rink
Working closely with Whatcom Museum and Washington State Archives at WWU, William has documented highly specific local history and United States stamps that no previous books had catalogued.
“I started out in advertising,” says William. He was a design major in college and became a graphic designer, working in advertising and even starting his own agency. His first book came out 10 years ago. “A colleague of mine approached me and we co-authored The Early Railroads of Whatcom County and Washington Territory. That led to another book in the series, and then my own on one of my hobbies, which is stamp collecting.”
William’s writing inspirations also started with personal history from a young age.
“Trains have always been a passion of mine since I was a kid,” he says. “We took a train across the country from California to Kansas and that made a big impact on me.” His grandfather got him into stamp collecting when he was young. “I started collecting telegraph stamps, which were kind of train-related, and that led me to telephone stamps. I’ve always been a history buff.”
Community Collaboration
William and Laura have supported each other’s work in big and small ways, each being the other’s final reader before submission.
“We’re both home all the time and that’s huge, giving each other quiet time and space,” says William. We proofread each other’s work.”
Both authors remain actively involved with local organizations and events, including critique groups for fellow authors.
“Advice to aspiring authors looking to get published?” says Laura. “Work on your craft, work on your writing. It’s competitive out there. There are a lot of really good writers. I think your writing needs to be top quality and you need to find the things that only you can write. For me, it’s like not looking at what is selling, it’s looking at what can I bring to this that’s authentic with me.”
Readers can follow the Rinks’ work at their personal websites and public events from Village Books, the Whatcom Writers and Publishers, and Allied Arts’ Holiday Festival.
