The Power Writer
The electric power industry operates the largest machine ever devised by humankind—the grid. To do that successfully, it manages an extraordinarily complex and finely tuned value chain of fuels, generators, transmission lines, substations, poles and wires. It employs legions of managers, engineers, and technicians to operate this vast system, and experts in financial wizardry necessary to do so at a modest profit. And it does all that to deliver electricity to a customer base that includes everyone but utterly dependent customer base who depend on this service for their very lives, yet who don’t understand 1/10th of one percent of its complexity.
about which the comfort, health, prosperity, and entertainment
All to deliver a commodity that their customers need on a daily basis but pay not attention to other than during outages. It’s an industry subject to overlapping layers of local, state, and federal regulation, with an alphabet soup of advocacy groups representing consumers, large and small business, environmentalists, and labor. And it’s under siege from makers and sellers of new and emerging technologies like grid batteries who want to sell to electric utilities while taking over their business. And it’s an industry in the midst of a great transition as demand begins to rise for the first time in decades to supply AI data centers and rapidly electrifying energy uses in homes and businesses.
magine selling a service that your customers depend on for their very lives, but do not understand. And then imagine that these customers have no choice but to buy what they need from you. That’s the electric power industry. It
“A stunning, heart-tugging debut—Hight paints a setting reminiscent of Richard Powers’ The Overstory while weaving a tale of addiction as crushing as David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy!”
“An emotional tale full of love, anger, regret, and the other things that make us human. The story brought me to tears.”
About Jim
Jim Hight had written for dozens of newspapers and magazines in Los Angeles and Boston before he moved to rural Humboldt County, California, in 1996 as the staff writer for North Coast Journal. The city boy was intrigued and fascinated by his new subjects—loggers and forest defenders, fishermen and scientists, ranchers and dairy farmers, small-town mayors and tribal leaders, county sheriffs and cannabis growers. His writing delighted readers, and he won an environmental and agricultural reporting award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association.
But Hight had moved to cannabis-friendly Humboldt at the worst time for his recovery from marijuana addiction—and the best time for this novel, as things would turn out.
Talk It Out
In addition to writing, Jim has another vocation that probably won’t surprise readers of Moon Over Humboldt: he helps people who disagree about politics and morality talk things over in ways that can reduce fear and anger and increase trust and respect.
