Gini Chin

(And an excerpt from Chapter Three: First Do No Harm, and a reminder about the Ramblings from the Little Shed podcast on May 20, 2026)

May 16, 2026

Hello from Wells, England, where I am hard at work (really!) scribbling away in preparation for the June 6, 2026 launch of the next book in the series.

In the meantime, enjoy this bio from marvelous artist and contributor Gini Chin, who has generously contributed art and photos to the first two books. Look for more from Gini in The Dogs of Looser Island: What You Need.

See more (so much more!) on her website spot312.com, and on Instagram @gini_chin_designs.

Gini Chin lives in Portland, Oregon with her boxer/mastiff rescue dog, Minnow. She enjoys paddle boarding, cooking, writing, and making art. She has a BA from the University of Oregon with a major in graphic design and a minor in French.

Gini’s had a marvelously varied career that included owning a wine bar in a small coastal town in Washington, and enucleating eyes (removing them from donors) for the Lion’s Eye bank.

Gini designs spectacular book covers and equally spectacular video trailers for book launches (check out her work here: www.spot312.com). She is currently writing a memoir, and a sequel to The Beautiful Abyss.

Gini’s art credits include:

Member of Gallery 114
Represented by Mark Woolley Gallery in Portland
Reviews in The Oregonian and Artweek magazine
- From The Oregonian: Gini Chin’s “works meld two mysterious worlds, on the one side math and science, while on the other side sexuality and nature. [Chin’s] ‘Suggestive Series’ is everything an art lover could want in a gallery show . . . .” Jeff Jahn, Visual Arts
- From Artweek: “Gini Chin addresses the mystery of death and suggests the strange possibility of further transformation beyond death . . . . The objects . . . convey a sense of irrepressible vitality. . . . [There are] manifestations of a larger, spiritual energy in life.” Isaac Peterson, Volume 32 Issue 11.

Find Gini Chin’s page-turner of a thriller,
The Beautiful Abyss, on Amazon and everywhere good books are sold.

And go to Spot312.com to check out the fabulous book covers and promo videos.
Here’s the video she created for the launch of Two Over Easy All Day Long

See more from and about Gini Chin on
the Artists and Contributors page of
The Dogs of Looser Island website.

Excerpt from Chapter Three: First Do No Harm

In the exact center of the island, in a close, stifling wood, there are the crumbling ruins of . . . something. Five stone pillars, five stone chairs, and one massive stone table carved with strange runes and symbols and cracked down the middle, as if someone used the table to act out the Aslan story in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

Trailing vines hang from every surface, cobwebs festoon every corner. Dust motes, quivering in the few pale shafts of sunlight that filter through the dense forest overstory, seem suspended in time.

Elsewhere on the island, the wind whistles through the topmost branches of the tall Douglas firs and the shorter but still majestic madrones and the dry-moss festooned Garry oaks, or whispers through the ferns (licorice ferns and lady ferns and sword ferns), or dances playfully among the pale pink nootka roses and the yellow profusion of tumble mustard, or roars powerfully over the white-capped waters of the Salish Sea—the wind is a Presence in the San Juan islands.

Here, the wind is not just quiet, it is absent.

Elsewhere on the island, dogs bark and yip and whine and snuffle and howl. On the village commons, rabbits thump out the beginnings of a warning, then give up because, with few natural predators, they are out of the habit of giving or heeding warnings, and scarcely seem to notice if a hawk snatches a fellow leporid from the meadow. (“Hmm, there goes Fred. I liked Fred. Ah well, clover’s especially tasty this morning, don’t you think, Marv?”) Near the marina on Gull Bay, there is always at least one blue heron who, when disturbed (usually by a human coming to his or her or their boat), whumps the air with its impossibly large wings, and complains about the disturbance, sounding like a cross between a pterodactyl and a cranky old man. Bald eagles twitter, purple martins chirp, great horned owls rend the air with a most undignified screech.

But here among the ruins, there is absolute silence.

To say that it is creepy would be an understatement.

Some claim the ruins are Masonic. Others believe a witch’s coven met here and danced in the moonlight. Still others suggest it was a First Nation ceremonial site.

The islanders have resisted all suggestions to call in anthropologists who might examine the ruins and provide a definitive answer. Historian accounts that attempt to solve the mystery gather dust in the Looser Island Library.

No one really wants to know the truth, when the unsolved mystery is so delicious.

Reminder that I’ll be joining Holly B. Gutwillinger’s Ramblings from the Little Shed on May 20, 2026. Check out her podcast on Substack here!

Last and least and just because…

The view of the Wells Cathedral from my aerie

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