Back in 1984, Jane Kirkpatrick took a gamble. Despite having a successful career in social services, she left Bend to begin an entirely different chapter: She, along with husband Jerry, would move to the edge of the John Day River — 11 miles from any pavement and 25 from the nearest town — where they would ranch and Jane would write.

Last Thanksgiving, 26 years after moving to that remote locale, Kirkpatrick moved back to Bend, having written some 20 books. The number will hit 21 in October with the publication of “Barcelona Calling,” a contemporary novel — and an abrupt left turn for the author of 17 historical novels.

Starvation Lane

Such changes in direction are nothing new for Kirkpatrick, 65, who grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, then moved to Oregon in 1974 to work in the disabilities field.

She would become director of the mental health program in Deschutes County, a post she held for seven years. She was also the first female president of the Oregon Community Mental Health Director’s Association.

Her husband was a builder, but yearned for the rural life. For five years, Kirkpatrick resisted the idea of moving to a ranch. Then, in 1984, “we quit our jobs, and made this big decision to move up there,” she says, snickering a bit at the thought — almost as though she still doesn’t quite believe it.

What finally convinced her to go to a 160-acre ranch on Starvation Lane was her faith in writing. On her website, she mentions a “still, small voice” prompting her to “Trust. Go to the land and write.”

“I did get to that place where I thought, ‘OK, there’s some reason why we’re supposed to go up here,” she says. “And you know, truly, it changed my life. It was the best decision I ever made.”

Kirkpatrick had done her share of writing in her professional life. Shortly before the move, she’d taken a couple of writing classes at Central Oregon Community College, “and was encouraged with my writing.”

‘Landscape of the mind’

“I thought the writing would keep Jerry and I from killing each other (up) there, and it did; we didn’t kill each other,” Jane Kirkpatrick said last week during an interview at her home on homey-sounding Casa Court just north of Bend. (Jerry sat in for a portion of the interview. Asked if he is also a writer, he answered, “No. I have trouble with a postcard.”)

Not only did they not kill each other, but writing presented Jane Kirkpatrick with an opportunity for another career. She also did social work part-time at Warm Springs, a two-hour commute, each way.

Kirkpatrick captured the labors, hardships and triumphs of ranch life in her first book, “The Homestead,” a memoir published in 1991 and updated in 2005. “It’s not a ‘how-to’ book,” Kirkpatrick writes on her website (www.jk books.com). “Even our address — Starvation Lane — suggests struggle and trial.”

More books followed. Her first novel, “A Sweetness to the Soul,” was published in 1995, and “then it’s been a book or sometimes two a year,” says Kirkpatrick. “I think, one year, I didn’t have anything. I think it was ’99. I changed publishers and so I was transitioning and was getting the next contract. I made up for it, because in 2003, I think I had two books come out.”

She writes fairly quickly, but also puts in a long day. When she’s conducting historical research, she fills plastic tubs with notes, documents and other material for each book. And when she’s writing, she works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Her most recent book, “The Daughter’s Walk,” published last spring, is based on the true story a mother and daughter who, in 1896, walked from Washington state to New York City.

Often inspired by real 19th century people, Kirkpatrick has written about pioneer women who have lost their husbands, and a trilogy about Emma Wagner Giesy, who went west with nine male scouts to find a home for their religious colony.

Spirituality often comes up when reviewers speak of her books.

“I don’t think the books are religious even though, of course, they’re sold in the Christian section,” she says. “I want the books to be safe,” not religious tracts. “At the same time, I hope that, when they are there, that whether you are a person of faith or not, I think everybody has a spiritual side of who they are.

“I’m asking how my characters are trying to find meaning, what are they doing here, and how do they make sense of that and how do they put that into some sort of context with the realization that this could be their last day.”

Being an author is a departure from her previous work in mental health, but it’s not as different as one might assume. Through writing, Kirkpatrick is “exploring the landscape of the mind … and I think it’s very healing,” she says.

Readers of her work seem to have a similar experience, she says.

“The responses I get from readers about the books would indicate that it is a healing act, as much as maybe counseling is. And maybe sometimes it can be more effective, because people don’t have their guard up,” Kirkpatrick says. “They’re reading a story — and most of them are about the lives of real people — so they’re reading about someone and maybe gleaning from that ideas about their own strengths and capabilities.”

Moving to Bend

More recently, the struggles she documented in “Homestead” were compounded by the fact that, since 2001, Jerry, who’s 81, has been averaging a medical emergency every other year, Jane Kirkpatrick says. Twice, he had to be flown out from the ranch by helicopter for medical care.

“We were just thinking at some point we would come back to this area,” she says. “It was getting on 2011, and we started looking and we found this house. We made an offer. It was a short sale, and we didn’t expect it to close as soon as it did, but it did,” she says.

“Then we said, ‘What shall we do? Move, leave it empty, rent it?’” she recalls. “Jerry said, ‘Maybe we should just move there.’

“And I’m so glad, too. He had a stroke in March and a heart attack in April. So it was very good. He would not have survived the heart attack. The stroke was mild, but maybe it was mild because the EMTs were there in 12 minutes.”

“‘Homestead’ was the story of our leaving here and that adventure,” says Kirkpatrick. “And I said, ‘I’m really glad I didn’t badmouth anybody in Bend, because here we are back. The Bend we left is very different from the one we came back to, but I’m just really happy to be back. I liked Bend before, but I like it.”

Her husband is now closer to medical care and a brother who lives in Bend. “It’s been a good return, a good transition back,” says Kirkpatrick, who’s still game for new adventures.

‘It’s different’

Which brings us to the novel “Barcelona Calling.”

“It’s different,” says Kirkpatrick, laughing. It’s the contemporary tale of a young author, Annie Shaw, who’s preoccupied with becoming famous. Her tight-knit crew of well-meaning friends intend for her latest tome to get a mention by none other than the empress of all things media, Oprah, whose now-defunct book club logo stamped on a book was sort of a Midas touch for sales.

Sunriver Books and Music owner Deon Stonehouse has already devoured the book, and found it “light and funny (with) points to make.”

It marks “a real departure for Jane,” she told The Bulletin. “It will probably have a broader market than Northwestern historical fiction.”

In a blurb Stonehouse recently sent to the American Booksellers Association about “Barcelona Calling,” she wrote that protagonist Annie “throws herself into all the zany ideas for attracting Oprah’s attention. Along the way she forgets for a little while about what is really important and loses herself in schemes for fame and recognition. This is a funny, entertaining story that brings home the message of being true to yourself.”

It’s a book Kirkpatrick had long threatened to write.

Whenever you publish a book, she says, “Someone, some well-meaning person, will lean into you and say, ‘Have you ever thought about getting Oprah to pick your book for her book club? I bet that would really help your sales.’”

Kirkpatrick is a popular speaker, and she says that in presentations, she would often comment how she’s going to write a book called “Oprah Doesn’t Know My Name.” It would be about a writer who has confused fame with fulfillment.

“I had a publisher at the time who heard me say that, and he said, ‘You know, we want you to write that book.’” Kirkpatrick demurred at first, saying, “This is just my little fantasy.”

She eventually relented, writing a first manuscript that was rejected by the publishing house — the argument against it being, she says, “No. She writes historical fiction.”

“I was like, ‘Fine!’” says Kirkpatrick. However, an editor there had liked the draft, or at least the idea, and remembered the book when he went to work at another publisher.

That first effort was “bad,” she says, and so she significantly reworked it.

“I thought, ‘You know, it would be interesting to try to write something totally fictional, without the history to be the spine,’” she says. But the prospect also made her nervous.

Her editor helped, suggesting Kirkpatrick envision Annie as the descendant of some historical figure she’d already written about.

“That was such a great insight, and so that’s what I did. So now my faithful readers can try to guess who the heck that is. Who is this person like? What’s their DNA that came down from some other character?”

If she found the writing harder than her historical work, it was mainly because of the “harpies” in the back of her mind asking, “What are you trying to do? Who told you you could do this? This is going to be a horrible flop,” she says. “Which is in part what my character had to deal with: She’d gotten distorted about why it is that she writes.”

Kirkpatrick is hopeful that her ardent readers will make the leap to contemporary fiction with her even as she looks ahead to other books. This winter, she’ll publish a Christmas novella titled “Log Cabin Christmas.”

“It’s my first novella. See these are all new things I’m doing,” she says. Her next full-length novel, “Where Lilacs Still Bloom,” is due out in April and finds her back at historical fiction.

Of course, “Barcelona Calling” is her focus at the moment, and Kirkpatrick has a full promotion schedule in the month ahead.

Is it bad timing that “The Oprah Winfrey Show” recently ended its long run?

“I think that’s fine,” Kirkpatrick says. “The worst thing would be if people thought, ‘Oh, she’s writing this so that Oprah will pick this book.’ A real desperate ploy!”

“You know,” she playfully adds, “if she wanted to know my name, she could put me on her network.”

If you go

What: Readings by Jane Kirkpatrick

Details:

* Sept. 24 at 5 p.m. at Sunriver Books and Music, Building 25c, Sunriver Village (541-593-2525)

* Sept. 28 at 6:30 p.m., Paulina Springs Books, 252 W. Hood, Sisters (541-549-0866)

* Sept. 29 at 6:30 p.m., Paulina Springs Books, 422 S.W. 6th St., Redmond (541-526-1491)

Contact: www.jkbooks.com