Taking Stock

I used to fret over my penchant for organization and analysis, thinking good writers were so right-brained they could hardly hold their heads up. Thanks to the “dancer test,” I breathed a big sigh of relief: by this measure, I couldn’t be more right-brained. (Though retaking it to set up this link, I turned up balanced, seeing both right and left movement.) The so-called test may have little validity, but it helped me debunk the right-brained myth and embrace the brain I was born with.

Organization, analysis, and evaluation are terrific writer skills, as long as you don’t turn them loose prematurely or in the wrong places. They’re especially helpful when you’re trying to get a handle on the big picture: the trajectory of your writing career.

Why worry about trajectory? Why not just write? Mostly, that’s what I do. But unless you’re writing wholly and completely for pleasure, with not the tiniest concern about whether you’ll be published or get paid, it doesn’t make sense to keep stumbling around without ever taking stock of your efforts.

Having embraced spreadsheets to organize data for a couple of freelance gigs, I decided to use one to sort through the unpublished projects I’d collected over the past ten years or so. Like most writers, I have a pretty good handle on what I’ve published: 2 YA novels, 3 picture books (plus one forthcoming), 1 middle grade (2010), 1 nonfiction for adults, and 2 travel guides. What I needed to probe was the stuff in my own personal slush pile.

I set up a spreadsheet with these headings: title, length, partial/full, genre, characters, premise, voice, comments, and assessment. I created a ranking system, one through five, with one being “no hope” and five being “ready to submit,” and three columns for numerical rankings: character, premise, and overall assessment. Then I mined my Word docs. Only partial or full manuscripts made the cut. I copy/pasted snippets from my drafts into the voice column, and I tagged a few of the more prominent voices in the character column.

The process took about four hours, start to finish. I sorted and resaved the spreadsheet several ways: alpha order by title, alpha order by genre, numerical order by assessment, and alpha order by action. I totaled my words: a whopping 546,964 words of unpublished manuscripts in ten years, compared to roughly (I haven’t done a spreadsheet for this) 200,000 words of published manuscript over the same time frame. That was a surprise: I’d have estimated the ratio of unpublished to published to be much wider. But my figures don’t include journals and multiple drafts.

More importantly, the tables give me a snapshot of what I want to return to and why. I found three picture book manuscripts that have potential as magazine sales (if I can get past the fact that I still haven’t been paid for my last magazine effort, published some ten months back). I found four manuscripts I’d like to use in my own self-directed workshops, playing around with various aspects of story without feeling pressure to produce a finished product. And I found five that made my short list for attention next year.

Of course, I don’t plan to just mine my old stuff. I love diving into new stories, fresh and full of possibilities. But sometimes it’s good to take stock.

49 Writers weekly round-up

We might still be waiting for snow here in Anchorage, but that's not stopping the 2009 Mushing History Conference, bringing together authors, historians, researchers, writers, veteran mushers and supporters of the colorful history of sled dog travel. In addition to several well-known mushers, speakers and presenters will include Jane Haigh of Kenai, author of Gold Rush Dogs, and author Linda Chamberlain of Homer.

The Conference opens with an informal gathering for the presenters on Friday, November 6, from 5 to 7 pm, at the Iditarod Trail Headquarters in Wasilla, reconvening on Saturday, November 7, at UAA's Commons Conference Room 107A from 9 am to 5 pm and at the Grand View Hotel in Wasilla on Sunday, November 8, from 9 am to 3 pm. All events are free to the public, with donations appreciated but not necessary, and families are encouraged to attend. For more information, call the Conference Coordinator, Helen Hegener, at 907-354-3510 for information.

[NOTE: THE FOLLOWING SIMPSON/BURLESON EVENT WAS CANCELLED DUE TO ILLNESS.] Also in the Valley this weekend, Sherry Simpson and Derick Burleson of UAA's Low-Residency MFA Program will be giving a free public reading Saturday, November 7 at 7 p.m. in the yurt at Spring Creek Farm in Palmer. We understand that in addition to being oh-so-Alaskan, the yurt is a great venue for this kind of casual and intimate literary event---it’s warm (yes, there’s heat), inviting, and it’s surrounded by acres of fields, gardens, and woods—none of which you’ll be able to see since it will be dark.

Also on Saturday, the UAA Campus Bookstore will be open from 10 am - 2 pm to celebrate National Bookstore Day with a 20% off storewide sale. Some exclusions apply (i.e. textbooks, software and computers, consignment, sundries).

Remember, too, that on Monday, November 9 from 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. Bill Sherwonit, author of Changing Paths: Travels and Meditations in Alaska's Arctic Wilderneess, presents "Notes from a Literary Journalist: The Importance of Passion, Persistence, and paying Attention." This event is cosponsored with the UAA CWLA/MFA Program.

On Tuesday November 10 from 5 - 7 p.m., Seth Kantner, Phyllis Fast, James Labelle and Karla Booth will speak on "How Life in the Arctic is Depicted." Seth Kantner is author of the Ordinary Wolves and Shopping for Porcupine, and Phyllis Fast is the author of Northern Athabascan Survival. Shopping for Porcupine is the UAA/APU Book of the Year for 2009-2010.

The following week, on Monday November 16 in SSB 118 at 7 pm, Dahr Jamail will discuss his new book, The Will to Resist: Soldiers who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jamail's visit is sponsored by the Gene Sharp Lectureship on Nonviolent Action, Political Science Dept/UAA; Political Science Association/UAA; Alaskans for Peace and Justice; Veterans for Peace-Ernest Gruening Chapter and the UAA Campus Bookstore.

Joan Kane, an Anchorage poet honored by multiple national awards, will be featured in a November reading to celebrate Alaska Native writers. The poetry reading and discussion is set for 6 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 17 at the UAA Campus Bookstore. The free event is sponsored by the bookstore, by Alaska Center for the Book and the Alaska Native Heritage Month Committee, marking November as Alaska Native/American Indian Heritage Month. Campus parking is free.

Kane recently made national headlines by being named one of 10 emerging writers awarded the 2009 Whiting Award. She will read from her newly published book, The Cormorant Hunter's Wife, recently released by NorthShore Press. A discussion will follow with other Alaska Native poets. Copies of Kane's book will be available for purchase and signing at the Nov. 17 poetry reading. For more information on the event, contact carolben@gci.net.

Ann Chandonnet's essay “Write What You Don’t Know” is now online in the November newsletter of Winoca Books & Media. You can link to www.winoca.com. Chandonnet also shares news from Book Rix of a free short story contest for writers and readers on the theme "Travel Stories." On the line: $1,800.00 in prize money for writers, "fame!" and Amazon vouchers (each worth $20) for voting readers.

Writers need libraries -- and so do we all: a guest post by Nancy Lord

The political writer Joe Klein (Primary Colors) has written, “Libraries are places where we writers go after we die, if we're lucky. We’re going to live on through libraries. But there is also something more. In addition to being a place that we go after we die, (if we are lucky,) libraries are also the place where a great many writers are born.”

This is certainly the case for me—the part about being born, though I also hope for the lucky part.I have so many fond memories from my childhood of the big old granite and marble Manchester NH public library and the “bookmobile” that brought its treasures right to my neighborhood. I didn’t know then that I would become a writer, but my library was without question the place that opened my mind to every sort of adventure and possibility.I loved to read, I learned about language and storytelling from reading, and it’s natural that I eventually wanted to emulate what seemed so essential and beautiful to me.

In Homer, we’re fortunate to have a new public library, three years old now. I say fortunate because it’s not something that just happened. The community had waited a long time for a new and larger building to replace the small one that had become not much more than a book warehouse, where you could go in, get a book, and leave, and where any new book meant an old book had to be removed to make room.

We were fortunate that a core group of citizens got together and launched a campaign to plan and fundraise for a new building and that we had city leaders—our library director, city manager, mayor, and council members—who supported the effort. We were fortunate that the economy was reasonably healthy at the time, and that the whole community (well, almost) backed the project, and that we got help from our elected officials at the federal and state level as well as government agencies and foundations (thanks, Rasmuson Foundation!)We now have a community building that’s way more than a book repository; it’s a center for learning and civic engagement, with access to multiple educational technologies and plenty of space for study and conversation.

In the course of being involved with our new library project, I heard a lot of library stories from people who stepped forward with their checkbooks and volunteerism.I heard from one woman that she’d practically grown up in a library because, in her childhood, it was the only safe place to be. I heard from a well-known artist that all his real education came from a library and that if it had not been there for him, he never would have made it through high school and would not have had any idea about what purpose he should find in life. I heard from adults who had learned to read, as adults, in libraries, and from people helped by librarians to find what they needed to fix their cars and their health.

Each of Alaska’s Writer Laureates is asked to have a “project” during his or her term, and so it was natural for me to focus on libraries. I’ve made a number of trips to communities now, where I visit libraries, do some kind of program there, and speak to library supporters about the Homer experience of planning and fundraising for a new library. I’ve found that many if not most public libraries in the state are outgrown and inadequate and that their communities are in various stages of planning for additions or new buildings. In sharing what I’ve learned, I emphasize that there is never a good time to fundraise for a new library (or anything else); you just have to decide to do it, plan carefully, have a core group of worker-bees, and then do it. One of the motivations for us in Homer was knowing that Haines had succeeded in building a new library. If they could do it, we could! In Alaska, of course, with our small population and lack of individual or even foundation wealth, no one expects private donors to fully fund anything. In Homer we raised an impressive amount of local money before taking our case to foundations and public entities, where we found a generous willingness to “partner” with us.

On my most recent “mini-tour,” in September I visited the community libraries in Kodiak, Sutton, Palmer, Wasilla, and Talkeetna. I also stopped in, just to take a look, at the Eagle River library (very new) and the Big Lake library (relatively new and being used as the design template for Mat-Su libraries to follow.) I’ve always had a high regard for library volunteers and professionals, but my appreciation is even higher after meeting so many kind and committed library people.

We library supporters face a number of myths that need constant correction. The big one is that libraries are irrelevant now that “everyone” has a computer and can Google anything he or she wants to know. This faulty argument misunderstands the role of modern libraries, which are not about looking in books for information, and are—just as Andrew Carnegie insisted—for everyone equally. Statistics from the American Library Association show that libraries are busier than ever. Nationwide, the number of people using libraries is up, participation in programs by both children and adults is up, and internet use is way up.

In the Kodiak library, two men were playing chess while others read newspapers in non-English languages and the computer stations were full. In Sutton, a mother read to a child in a comfy chair, in Wasilla someone was checking out movies, and in Talkeetna kids worked on their homework. In Eagle River I plugged in my laptop to check email. Back in Homer, a computer club meets, a knitting circle meets, and a book group is reading Asta in the Wings.

Driving back from Talkeetna, I was listening to the radio—I might have been listening to a book-on-tape from my library except that my car has no tape or CD player—and heard someone say, “It’s a good thing we already have public libraries. Can you imagine trying to get such an idea through Congress now?”

It’s a good thing we have our libraries, but we have to defend and support them always. As I write, the budget-cutting Homer City Council is preparing to close Homer’s new library on Mondays. But there’s a girl who needs a safe place to go on Mondays, and there’s a budding artist who might realize his gift. And there’s someone who just wants to borrow and read a book.

Nancy Lord is the Alaska State Writer and author, most recently, of Rock, Water, Wild.

Your Turn: NaNoWriMo (or not)?

I'm having trouble getting online at all today (make it all this month) because I have not one but TWO kids at home, taking part in NaNoWriMo.

Anyone out there taking part in the month-long event, which challenges participants to write an entire fast-draft novel of 50,000 words (less for the younger participants) in the month of November?

I've got an 11-year-old and a 15-year-old battling for both the laptop and the desktop, each with just over a thousand words written and ambitions to write 15,000 to 20,000 more. (It's all about the quantity, not necessarily about the quality -- but that's a good way to keep the internal censor from taking over.) My daughter has been distracted at times by the chatty forums, much as I get swallowed up in email -- eegadz, the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, as my own mother used to say. But both daughter and son are doing great, while learning lesson number one about writing: that simple butt-in-the-chair time comes first, perfectionism later.

Do you love NaNoWriMo? Think it's silly? Do you have any of your own non-NaNoWriMo November writing goals to share? (I'm revising a novel manuscript, hoping -- hoping! -- to have a new draft before Thanksgiving.)

Once I wrench the kids away from their screens for longer than 5 minutes, I promise to bring you a new post by Nancy Lord. Check back soon and if you're a NaNoWriMo-er -- write on!

In Defense of Self-Promotion: A Guest Post by Ken Waldman

There's no getting around promotion: writers and books need it. With his penchant for both language and entertainment, 49 Writers featured author Ken Waldman is a master promoter. It all starts with recognizing and acting on opportunities.

I was going to title this post In Defense of Self-Publishing, but recall how Ned Rozell covered that three months ago. But first, before I talk about self-promotion, I'll share two of my own stories about self-publishing.

I'd moved to Fairbanks in 1985 to attend the MFA program. Though I'd entered and graduated as a fiction writer, I'd started writing poems, and during subsequent years in Juneau, Sitka, and Nome, I wrote more and more of them. From 1989 to 2000 I sent out for publication virtually everything I'd written. A few stories got published first. Then some poems. Then plenty more poems.

Sometime back then, I thought about putting books together. I'd written maybe a hundred poems about Nome and the Bering Straits region, so that seemed an obvious book. And here I recall passing through Fairbanks. Naomi Shihab Nye was there with her husband, Michael, a photographer. They were touring the state as visiting artists. One night at a party I talked a long while with Michael. He mentioned they'd be heading to Nome in a few weeks and would be spending several days there. I told him I'd written poems set in and around Nome that they might find interesting, and I'd be happy to pass along a copy of the manuscript. He said I should just drop it by the English Department on campus, where Naomi could pick it up. The next day I did just that, and the following day I got a phone call from Naomi, who invited me to come see her. When we met, she told me she'd read the manuscript, and that I should persist with this project: it was publishable.

Eleven months later I was living in Juneau. A former poetry student of mine with a background in graphic design had offered to design a chapbook for me. The timing was perfect. I'd just received an invitation to present at a statewide conference in Anchorage, and it would be ideal to have a chapbook with some of my rural-set poems. At the time, I had an ancient two-floppy-disk computer, a contraption that may have been fine for my writing, but wasn't a help with this. I watched amazed as my friend, Penelope, took the poems I'd typed on her laptop, and with a few clicks allowed me to view them in various sizes and fonts.

The first chapbook was so successful that a few months later I paid a graphic designer to make a chapbook with all my music poems. And a few months after that, working at the UAF Summer Fine Arts Camp, I stayed a week afterward to take advantage of the computers on campus, and taught myself to design my own chapbooks. I put together four more there, and made my first poetry postcards. Later that fall, back in Juneau, I used library computers, and designed two more chapbooks.

So, in 1995 I self-published eight chapbooks. In 1996, I self-published eight more. In 1999, having moved to Anchorage, I self-published my last ten. Twenty-six seemed right, an alphabet of chapbooks. And while I don't sell them now, they still have value, since when I visit middle schools, high schools, and colleges, I'll show all twenty-six, and explain I chose the poems so each individual chapbook has unity. For instance, there's the first one with its rural-set poems; there's the second one with music poems; and then there are the others—-the chapbook of comedy sonnets, the chapbook of political poems, the chapbook of plane crash poems (here I mention that students don't have to have a plane crash in order to write one of their own; they can write about their car wrecks, their bike wrecks, the times they've fallen out of trees).

The process of putting these chapbooks together not only taught me how to assemble my six full-length collections, but also gave me the necessary skills for making CDs. And in 1996, when I met John Crawford of West End Press, who later published my first two full-length poetry collections, I offered him a copy of my first chapbook, the one set in rural Alaska. John took it to read overnight. The next day he mentioned he liked the poems, and wanted to see the complete manuscript, the one that Naomi Shihab Nye had read two years earlier.

Though it took another four years for that first book to actually be published—-and it was published in much different form—-I remained convinced that having self-published some of the poems to make a chapbook catalyzed the process.

The other story about self-publishing?

Three years ago, on the advice of another of one my other publishers, Bryce Milligan of Wings Press, I wrote a children's book. After all, Bryce argued, I had a successful children's CD, often went into schools, and ought to have something to sell.

At least I attempted to write a children's book, since Bryce didn't much care for my effort, a sequence of Alaska-set acrostic poems from A to Z, which he thought was much too sophisticated. Since I didn't know the children's book market, I let the project languish, though not before writing another A to Z Alaska-set sequence, trying to address his concerns. Maybe he was right; maybe I needed to make the poems simpler.

When I showed him my second effort, he just shook his head. Since Bryce had written a couple of children's books himself, occasionally published children's books, and was married to a school librarian, I had to admit that he was likely right about this. Indeed, two years later, the only other time I showed the acrostic poems to someone who might potentially publish the book, I was again met with an utter lack of enthusiasm.

Still, I didn't shelve the project completely, and in May 2008 made the two acrostic-poem sequences the foundation of a second children's CD, which I recorded in Fairbanks. This past summer when I manufactured the CD, I felt I had to show off the acrostic poems, which meant putting them on the page. Incredibly, it cost more to make 1000 of the small 24-page booklets that were to be included in the CD than it cost to make 750 64-page, free-standing, 6x9 paperbacks. That got got me thinking. Since I'd already bought a series of ISBN numbers, I decided to just go ahead and self-publish the kids' acrostic poems as a stand-alone book. My
rationale: not only would I save money in the manufacturing, but maybe the book could be sold separately. With every buyer, I'd be coming out ahead.

So I published it myself this past spring, enlisting a friend to add illustrations, and officially gave it an October 1 publication date. Late June and early July I hauled them to library gigs in Haines and Anchorage, as well as to my other appearances in Juneau, Skagway, Girdwood, Kenai, Palmer, Talkeetna, Fairbanks, and Denali National Park. Surprisingly—-or maybe not-—the book and CD did just great, and the enthusiasm for the book from booksellers, librarians, and just regular readers was heartening. Stopping by University of Alaska Press when I was in Fairbanks, I happened to show the book to one of the editors and there was such interest that now they're distributing both the book and CD.

What does it all mean?

I've been through the process with enough projects that any optimism is guarded. It seems a given that so much of this business is random; all any of us can do is persist. I sent the book and CD out for review in mid-June before University of Alaska got involved. I haven't seen any reviews yet, and maybe there won't be any. But my first children's CD received national reviews, so maybe this project will get some too. Also, I understand University of Alaska Press will be sending the book and CD out also, so there are more opportunities. Regardless, I know the challenges in trying to distribute books and CDs on my own (a topic for still another post this month). I'm grateful for the help.

Self-promotion? Unless you count this piece as an example, I'll get to it next week, promise (though below I'm including links for some of the recognition I received last month in both North and South Dakota; how did those two interviews happen—-that's a bit of what I'll be explaining next
week) :

www.prairiepublic.org/radio/hear-it-now/?post=15417

and

www.sdpb.org/dakotadigest (click the 10/5/09 show “the fiddling poet”)

49 Writers Interview: Marilyn Sigman

Marilyn Sigman of Homer has an impressive resume: director of the Center for Alaskan Coastal Studies, winner of the Alaska Conservation Foundation's Jerry S. Dixon Award for Excellence in Environmental Education, former statewide coordinator for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's 'Alaska Wildlife Curriculum' program, past chairman of the Alaska Natural History Association, and a host of other leadership roles in Alaskan environmental organizations. Somehow, she has also found time to publish in the Alaska Quarterly Review, first in 2007 and again this fall. Here we talk with Sigman about balancing writing and work, the Alaskan experience, and literary journals.

You’ve made a significant impact on environmental education in Alaska. In what ways do your writing efforts extend that mission, and in what ways is your writing something altogether different?

In environmental education, the goal is to raise awareness and then to provide people with experiences and information so they can think critically, and think for themselves, about environmental issues and decide to change their behavior to be less harmful to the environment. So as an educator, I would always strive to share my own knowledge and enthusiasm and love of the (nonhuman) natural world, but keep a lot of my own thinking and opinions to myself. Writing, on the other hand - particularly what is now termed “creative nonfiction,” is a means to speak from the same passion that drives me as an environmental educator but with a much greater freedom to share my personal exploration of the cultural and spiritual complexities which I believe are at the root of many of our environmental issues. My hope is that I will able to affect and influence people at a deeper level.

What prompted you to begin publishing in literary journals?

I was encouraged by Sherry Simpson, who provided a manuscript review at a Kachemak Bay Writers Conference, and Nancy Lord, who taught a course in creative nonfiction at the UAA/KBC Kachemak Bay campus. After a lot of editorial help, they told me that I had written some pieces that they thought were publishable. I entered the Anchorage Daily News writers’ contest and received an honorable mention. After a few experiences with slush piles, the impetus to submit to the Alaska Quarterly Review was the result of reading in the submissions guidelines that all submissions from Alaska writers had a guarantee of being read [clarification: AQR reads all submissions].

In what ways do you feel Alaska has enriched and informed your writing?

I’ve always believed that Alaska is a state of mind as much as a geographical place. I’m continually inspired by connections between my sense-memories and the meanings they evoke. So as I ponder some abstract concept about which many thinkers and writers have had much to say and try to reach some synthesis or resolution that brings me some peace, or at least balance, of mind, it’s the Alaskan landscape and seasons and communities of living beings and beauty that provoke me and ground me and provide the stories and the metaphors.

What have you learned, and what are you still learning, about writing creative non-fiction?

After many, many years of writing more scientifically or bureaucratically in the third person, I think I am just beginning to learn to relax my resistance to writing in the first person and revealing myself through my writing. When I been successful at being a character in my non-fiction tales of science and philosophy, I have learned that this “trueness” of the writing is not only personally rewarding, but it also makes the strongest connections to people who read what I have written. I’m also learning that the personal things that are the hardest to write about are the richest in meaning.

Publishing in literary journals can be a good way to “get noticed,” but it also can be a rewarding end in and of itself. How do you view it?

I have a certain compulsion to write to make sense of the world. Writing “pieces” that are potentially publishable requires a certain coherence and organization on my part that really helps me figure out the nature of my current obsession and how I might need to change my belief system and life style accordingly. Actually having something published is the “icing on the cake.” I get the pat on the head by the editor that it’s “good enough” to publish and a potential audience who appreciates good and artful writing and who will, hopefully, share my obsessions and resolutions by reading the piece. While I sometimes dream of a “writing life,” I’m pretty busy with my “day job” which I think wise to keep.

What advice would you give to writers interested in publishing in literary journals?

Write what you’re compelled to write. Take a course and/or join a writing group – polish your editorial skills and learn how to “kill the darlings.” Know when a piece is done. Research the journals that publish the type of writing you do. Send it off. Send it off. Send it off. Keep writing. Repeat.

49 Writers weekly round-up

Wow. What a week. Dana Stabenow inks a deal with Evergreen Films toward a TV series featuring her Aleut PI, and Joan Kane earns a hugely prestigious Whiting Award. Front page of the Anchorage Daily News, two days running. Of course we covered the big news for Dana and Joan, too. Well done, Alaskan authors.

So let's ride the wave, starting with submissions for ICE FLOE, the celebrated and award-winning journal of circumpolar poetry, which will return in the fall of 2010 as an annual book series published by the University of Alaska Press. Subsequent volumes will be forthcoming in 2011, 2012, and 2013. ICE FLOE founders and Alaskans Shannon Gramse and Sarah Kirk will edit these anthologies in collaboration with an international editorial board of scholars, translators, and poets representing the world’s northern nations.

The University of Alaska Press is currently seeking poetry to be considered for inclusion in ICE FLOE 2010. Poets residing in Alaska, Northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Northern Russia are encouraged to submit new, original work. Poetry will be printed in its original language and in English translation. The only criterion is excellence; any language, style, or subject matter is welcome. Please submit no more than five poems. Simultaneous submissions will be considered, as will previously published work if accompanied by appropriate permissions. If possible, please provide English translations when appropriate and a brief paragraph of biographic information, also in English. Contributors will receive two copies of ICE FLOE. Electronic submissions (either in the body of an email message or as an attached MSWord .doc or .rtf file) are preferred and may be sent to icefloe@uaa.alaska.edu. The submission deadline for ICE FLOE 2010 is January 1, 2010.

Of interest to Anchorage booklovers and writers: Special Collections Librarian Michael Catoggio is hosting an insider's tour of the treasures of the Alaska historical collection in the Loussac Library. Meet at the Main Reference Desk, level 3, on Wednesday, Nov. 18, 3 p.m. Having made good use of this collection while researching Picture This, Alaska, I can attest that it's a real treasure trove.

Looking for a Halloween splurge? Alaska Sisters in Crime members Kimberley Gray and Elisa Hitchcock of OutCast! Productions are among the sponsors of an overnight adventure of Mystery, Fun and Suspense on October 30 at the Historic Anchorage Hotel. The History: On February 20, 1921, at 9:15 pm, Anchorage’s first Police Chief John J. “Black Jack” Sturgus was found shot in the back with a bullet from his own gun, steps away from the Historic Anchorage Hotel. It is rumored that his ghost returns to the scene of the crime each year, haunting the location of his untimely death, seeking justice for a crime still unsolved to this day. For $239 per couple, (includes room for two, evening appetizers/light meal, cash bar, and breakfast the following morning), you can become part of this meticulously researched mystery, wining and dining with the famous and infamous characters of a much younger Alaska. For details, call 272-4553 or 800- 544-0988.

With November closing in fast, it's time to say thanks to poet John Morgan for his guest posts as October's featured writer and to welcome another poet, Ken Waldman, as featured author for November. Looking ahead, watch for guest posts by Marilyn Sigman and Nancy Lord as well as an interview with Joan Kane. And remember to check the blogroll and author sites in our sidebar for all of the best in Alaskan (and Northern) authors and books

what the web is saying about award winner Joan Kane

We're eagerly awaiting our own upcoming interview with Alaska poet Joan Kane, but we can understand why she's a little busy today, as the secrecy veil lifts over receipt last night of a coveted $50,000 Whiting Writers Award.

New York magazine had this to say about the prize, which was awarded to ten writers and playwrights.

"...the Whitings are a ticket out of water-treading obscurity. Not everyone who wins follows the path of Whiting alumni Denis Johnson, August Wilson, Jonathan Franzen, Lydia Davis, and Jeffrey Eugenides. But even a book advance would be a quantum leap for another 2009 winner, Joan Kane, a (very pregnant) Native Alaskan writer whose new book of poetry, The Cormorant Hunter's Wife, had a print run of 500 copies with NorthShore Press, which runs off a solar cell. (She bought 400 of them so she could sell them herself.) "No royalties, nothing," says Kane, who has four subsidized months to get some writing done before her second child is due. "This comes at a really fortunate time."

The Anchorage Daily News shares this about Kane's background: a 32-year-old Inupiaq mom from Anchorage with a second son due in February, Kane was accepted into Harvard University at the age of 17, and received an MFA at Columbia in 2006. She works as a financial consultant for Native corporations but looks forward to concentrating on a second book of poems, among other things. Her play, "The Golden Tusk," premiered at the Anchorage Museum this summer.

The two other Alaskans who received past Whitings were Seth Kantner and Natalie Kusz.

The award ceremony was keynoted by Margaret Atwood, who had this great advice for the recipients: "'Doubt not, go forward. If thou doubt, the beasts will tear thee piecemeal.'"

Kate Shugak, P.I. one step closer to the TV screen

Congratulations to Dana Stabenow, who made a big splash this week with the announcement that film producer Mike Devlin has purchased rights to her Kate Shugak series -- just one step in a very long process of getting the successful mystery series made for TV.

The news popped up first in Dana's Roadhouse Report, where she explained:
As you have all heard me say too many times to count, I was determined to sell the screen rights only to someone who would shoot the series in Alaska. Specifically, to someone who would put Alaska, not British Columbia or central Washington state, right up there next to Kate and Mutt.

Well, that someone found me. Mike Devlin made his bones in Silicon Valley software, came north and fell in love with Alaska, and is now pursuing a second life in film production. I don't know him that well yet, but my gut says he's got a good heart and a hard head, along with the muscle and the determination to make this happen. He says, and I'm quoting verbatim, "There's no reason we can't film the whole series in Alaska."


I'm not a regular listener of radio guy Dan Fagan, but I tuned in yesterday to hear Stabenow and Devlin talk about the announcement and take calls from listeners, who wanted to know who would play Kate (an Alaska native actress, Dana hopes -- but this decision, like many others, will be hammered out with whatever network purchases the series) and whether Alaskans should keep their ears open for acting and production jobs (definitely). The Daily News followed up with a story today.

On the personal side, I'll add that I worked with Mike Devlin earlier this year, writing a script for a nature documentary still in development. My first impressions of him mirror Dana's: that he is smart, competent, and rarest of all in the movie business, a straight shooter. There's a long road ahead, but we all have our fingers crossed.

Got any thoughts about Alaska movie/TV adaptations? Kate Shugak? The Alaska economy and how books and film can help give it a boost? Check out our old 'Movie Week' posts about local filmmakers, and/or speak up here...

P.S. Mudflats provided an enthusiastic run-down of the offical announcement -- and best of all, photos of the Evergreen Films production facility hidden away on the Anchorage Hillside. Visiting the screening room, by invite only, is a bit like getting to see the inside of the BatCave. Fun stuff. When I worked there this spring, I often had to get a Hummer ride up the last icy stretch because even my Subaru couldn't make the final climb.

Denali Park Journal, Part Two: A guest post by John Morgan

"As the road crested over its top everything shimmered, the whole landscape gold and scintillating . . .Physical and temporal boundaries dissolved, and it felt like I’d reached a culmination, as if some crucial gap in my life had been filled." So writes our featured author, John Morgan, of a culminating moment as the first writer in residence at Denali National Park. (For Part One, see yesterday's post.)

Day 6. Nancy and Ben [our son] visiting. We woke up to heavy rain, low clouds and not much prospect for a change in the weather, but hey—this is the park—so we drove west, hoping for something different, and we got it—snow. Heading over Polychrome, rain turned to sleet and we could see the snow-level on the mountains dropping. The road wasn’t bad, though, and we continued out to Eielson, seeing along the way a mother grizzly playing in the snow with her single cub. They wrestled and rolled around in the frosty white stuff, delighted with each other and turned on by the snow.

At Eielson we walked into a snowball fight involving some visiting kids and the bus dispatcher. On the way back, we hiked near Stony Creek and came on a fresh-looking pile of bear scat and, nearby, a stretch of ripped up ground where the bear went after a ground squirrel. Seeing a few square yards of earth gouged and torn apart, big rocks tossed aside like tennis balls—a thorough thrashing of the region—gives a new and different perspective (different from the playful wrestling of a mother and cub) on the wild power and ferocity of a bear.

Day 7. We hiked to Tattler Creek, noting wildflowers and ringing bear-bells for bears—not to attract them, of course. In a rugged side-canyon, I scouted for dinosaur footprints (which have been found here) and saw many possible maybes, but no definite prints.

We crossed the stream and climbed to an open spot where we ate lunch overseen by a dozen Dall sheep. On the way back, we had to make another crossing of Tattler Creek. Following Nancy, I noticed that one of the rocks she stepped on had shifted slightly, so I was careful in placing a foot on it, but it shifted again and threw me off balance. When I asked her if I could write that “I fell gracefully into the stream,” she replied, “You can say that if you like, but it would be a lie!”

On my hands and knees in four inches of icy water, I took stock. A few minor scrapes, I thought. But something was wrong with my left pinky. It looked like a miniature hacksaw, with the middle section out of line with the rest. But as we were hiking out, figuring I would have to visit the clinic in Healy, I fiddled with the joint and it snapped into place.

Driving back to the cabin, Mt. McKinley was beautifully out at the far end of Sable Pass. It towered over the nearby hills, at a spot I’d never seen it before, brilliantly white, both summits sharp and clear for the first time on this trip

Day 8. Nancy and Ben packed up to leave and we drove to Teklanika and hiked through the woods and along the gravel bars of the river, seeing moose sign and the tracks of (possibly) a wolf. We ate our lunch out on a bar and then, driving to the park entrance, saw a couple of large-shouldered moose crossing the road just in front of us. I dropped Nancy and Ben at their car, gassed up and drove back to the cabin.

Day 9. As I headed out to North Face Lodge to give a reading, a fox preceded me up the Polychrome switchbacks. Red, smudged with black along its sides and rather scrawny—not the handsomest of foxes—it rubbed its muzzle along a scrap of something (a former meal perhaps) at the side of the road, not paying much attention to the poet following impatiently on its tail.

Then approaching the overlook, something amazing! Sun shearing through low clouds transformed the view to glitter. As the road crested over its top everything shimmered, the whole landscape gold and scintillating. I checked my shaky hands on the steering wheel, not wanting to swerve over the edge, but feeling in my crazy euphoria that if I did, nothing very bad would happen. Physical and temporal boundaries dissolved, and it felt like I’d reached a culmination, as if some crucial gap in my life had been filled. The unreal dazzling vision lasted for ten minutes or so, but it reverberated throughout the day and remains unforgettable.

At Thoroughfare Pass, where I’d seen the grizzly family (brown cubs, blond mother) on several earlier drives, and expected to see them again, instead a herd of caribou, more than 100 of them, grazed and moved gradually west toward Eielson. Lots of young ones, four of them lines up in a game of “follow the leader,” their herd instinct already kicking in.

The reading at North Face went very well, with a relaxed atmosphere and a large receptive audience. And afterwards, driving back to the cabin late, I shouted with surprise at the sight of a double rainbow shooting up from the base of Denali—brilliant colors, with the muscular shoulders of the mountain behind it.

Day 10. At an early hour, before I was properly into the day, I heard a car door slam. Some people were talking in what sounded like a foreign language. I unlatched the door and there stood two men in slacks and crewneck sweaters.

When I said, “Hello?” they glanced at each other, apparently unsure how to respond. One of them grinned sheepishly and the other muttered, “Murie…Murie…”

Finally, a third person, white bearded and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, stepped forward and explained, “These are two wolf specialists from Spain. I thought they should see the cabin.”

“Oh, sure,” I said, and at that the two Spaniards rushed past me and scurried about, excitedly taking in the bunk-bed, fridge and stove and noting my papers, books, and clothing scattered about, exclaiming, “Murie! Murie!” And when they departed, I felt I had served the cause of international wolf studies, though, sad to say, I haven’t seen a single wolf during this particular visit to the park.

Day 11. My last morning in the cabin, I went down to the river to have a look around and while I was casually staring at the fast-flowing silty channel, a head poked up mid-stream. What kind of head? I couldn’t tell. It was gone too quickly. Had it been a fish, trying to get its bearings? A river otter? Maybe it was just a trick of light on the riffles. Had I really seen anything at all?

But then in almost the exact same place, the head poked up again, this time followed by the long neck and mottled body of a duck—and instantly it was paddling and flapping desperately toward the bank, and was almost about to make it, when it disappeared again under the thick gray current.

Denali Park Journal, Part One: A guest post by John Morgan

For ten marvelous days this past June, I was writer-in-residence at Denali National Park. Here are some excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day 1. Driving to the cabin, I saw a group of fourteen caribou being pestered by a pair of long-tailed jaegers—move along! move along!—they swooped and shouted, protecting their territory. Focusing my binocs, my elbow hit the car horn and the caribou stopped dead, looking around for the source of the noise. I thought: “Strike one for me.”

After moving my stuff into the 14’x16’ cabin, equipped with a double bunk bed, a propane refrigerator and stove, I heard some loud talk and laughter coming from the river. Two naturalist filmmakers, Kennan and Karen Ward, were watching four or five fox kits poke their heads out of the den holes and peak down from over the top of the hill. The human noises we made seemed to intrigue and puzzle them—what strange two-legged creatures!?

Day 2. Scanning with binocs at the river, I noticed an odd boulder on the ridge-line across the way, past the East Fork bridge. It turned out to be a golden eagle, in profile against the sky. After about ten minutes, two more eagles circled in, looking through the blue haze of distance like shadowy ghost-birds.




Day 3. This morning, driving back from a hike at Tatler Creek, I saw a mother ptarmigan and two tiny chicks crossing the road. When I stopped I could hear her motherly peepings to hurry them along. On this stay in the park, I find my interest in bears and moose is somewhat less, while my attention to smaller creatures grows.

I also have more time to sit and take in the landscape. The hills I can see from the cabin window at the east end of Polychrome Pass, for instance—looping green and brown with dots and streaks of snow, rising up to snow-splashed peaks, with shifting clouds and cloud-shadows, and flitting and foraging in the foreground magpies, ground squirrels and rabbits.



Day 4. After showering at the staff washhouse at Toklat, I continued out to the Eielson Visitor’s Center and hiked up toward the ridge. The wildflowers were amazing—such varieties of color and shape, the alpine forget-me-nots an almost neon blue. On the drive back I saw the Wards' camper pulled over, with their camera set up. A sow grizzly and two first-year cubs—tiny by comparison—foraged in the middle-distance. She was blond and they were both brown and when she lay back for them to nurse I snapped a picture, though it was probably too far for me to get a decent shot.

While in the park, I’m reading Robert Richardson’s fine book on Thoreau (Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind). It turns out that Thoreau experienced true wilderness not at Walden Pond—a short stroll from his home in Concord—but rather on Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine, where, alone in howling wind, surrounded by barren rock, feeling sick and worn-out, he encountered a nature that was in no way hospitable to our species. He realized that nature has a range of experiences to offer and concluded that in essence there isn’t just one nature, but two. The familiar one, almost domestic, offers a healing relief from the petty distractions and restrictions of human communities, but, at the other end of its range, lies a hostile, barren world, which he called “Demonic Nature.” Thoreau felt that this harsh and alien environment was also important to humans, because, as he wrote, “We need to witness our own limits transgressed.”

And reading this, I realized that at the present time, while I’m relaxing in the cabin or cruising up and down the park road picking from a menu of easy to moderate hikes, there are climbers taking on Mt. McKinley itself, voluntarily putting their lives at risk, testing their limits and in some cases having their limits transgressed.

Day 5. A little after one a.m. the excited barking of a young fox got me out of bed. I saw it dash toward the den, pause and bark as if calling for a parent or sib, then turn and race back into the brush, where it continues to bark as I write this. A first kill perhaps? The look on its face—a mixture of terror and pride—as if its young life had stumbled on something utterly new and amazing!

The barking isn’t like a dog’s and could easily be mistaken for a crow cawing—which I did at first. But the barks are longer than caws and the silence between more spread out. Foxes are usually thought of as quiet and stealthy, but clearly this one feels it has something to crow about.

(To Be Continued)

49 Writers weekly round-up

How far can writers ride the coattails of our illustrious former governor? Perhaps quite a ways, which is some small justice in the face of Palin's gigantic advance. First, Going Rouge: An American Nightmare, launching the same day as Palin's Going Rogue. Edited by two Nation staffers, Going Rouge is a collection of 23 essays addressing Palin's catapult to fame and the "nightmarish" prospect of her continuing presence in the national arena. Included are Alaska's own Mudflats and Shannyn Moore. Copies may be pre-ordered at OR Books.

Then there's Frank Bailey, the former Alaska Airlines employee turned Palin staffer who took a tumble in Wootengate. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Bailey is working with a publicist from LA and her daughter to pen a memoir entitled Renegade: Sarah Palin's Hatchet Man. It's due out in three months, with one little hitch: there's no publisher yet. Imagine if we all pre-promoted like that.

If all that sounds like too much to read, don't despair: there's a Palin-spoofed coloring and activity book, written by a couple of cartoonists. Follow a maze to get Palin to the White House, or find where in the world our Alaskan oil ends up.



On a more serious note, Alaska Geographic announces an addition to its National Park Series, Lake Clark National Park and Preserve by Steve Kahn and Anne Coray. According to the publisher, "This beautifully designed, full-color book features captivating prose, stunning photography from Fred Hirschmann, and insights into the fascinating natural and cultural history that defines this majestic wildland."

And in more book news, Bradford Matsen's new book, Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King, the first complete biography of the legendary ocean explorer, inventor, and environmental sage, was released this week by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House. We'll feature an interview with Madsen in the weeks ahead.

Bill Streever, author of Cold, will be speaking and signing books at Barnes and Noble (Anchorage) on November 13 from 6 to 8 p.m., the Anchorage Museum on November 15 at 7 p.m., Title Wave midtown on November 28 at 1 p.m., and the Eagle River Nature Center on November 29 at 2 p.m. He'll also be at Borders (Anchorage)on December 20 at 2 p.m.

Another busy author is Debbie Miller of Fairbanks, who last weekend added the Forget-Me-Not award from the Alaska State Literacy Association to her growing list of accomplishments. Debbie's next book, Survival at 40 Below, comes out in February. And speaking of Fairbanks, we had a great time at the Red Lantern last Saturday night, meeting new writers and catching up on projects.

If you're looking to get a jump on holiday book-shopping, note that ReadAlaska 2010, the 17th annual Alaska publisher's book fair, will be held Thanksgiving weekend (Friday, Saturday and Sunday Nov. 27-29)at the Anchorage Museum. Alaska's largest book fair is held in conjunction with Crafts Weekend and will feature Alaska publishers and authors selling their latest books direct to the public. Admission is free and there will be music, food and access to all museum displays. It's a great opportunity to see the new museum expansion as well as network with Alaska publishers and authors. A number of companies that package books for authors will be there, including Greatland Graphics, Northbooks and Publication Consultants.

In the spirit of gift-giving, Operation eBook Drop provides a way for ebook authors to get their work to U.S. troops. Author Arne Bue forwards this link plus another for authors interested in participating.

A new exhibit in Spokane has resurrected a 240-line poem written by Ann Chandonnet about the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The poem (and an exhibit of bronzes by sculptor Peter Bevis that included casts made from semi-intact sea otter heads collected from the spill) debuted in 1993 in Anchorage. At that time, the words and music played in a continuous loop in the gallery. Ann says they didn’t know how the public would react, but some of them sat on the floor and listened to the whole thing. The composer, Phil Munger, made recordings of his soundscape and Ann's poem, which can be accessed at www.progressivealaska.blogspot.com

The Alaska Writers Guild is offering a series of seminars on writing and the writing process. Blending craft-talk, workshop and theory, the seminars will feature Lee Goodman, an MFA grad from Bennington College who also studied fiction in the graduate program at Boston University. His work has appeared in The Iowa Review and Orion Magazine, and his novel Cliff Nesting debuts next year. Goodman has taught at the University of Alaska Anchorage, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Alaska Pacific University. Seminars will be in two three-hour segments, with the cost for each class at $75 for Alaska Writers Guild members and $90 for non-members. The first, The Pesky Details: Dialogue, Voice and POV, will be November 11 from 7 to 10 p.m., with the second session a week later. For details, contact David Brown at dbeci@myexcel.com.

As if writers weren't already undercut in the market, now we've got book price wars. In a recent post, agent Nathan Bransford assesses the potential damage.

No Exit: Guest post by Leslie Leyland Fields

I push through the doors of the Ted Stevens airport, the last door on the strip. I am late, of course, but I am not worried. This is ERA I am flying, after all. I’m just going home to Kodiak. No airport security, just fly through the check-in 20 minutes before the flight, show a boarding pass and ID and walk the tarmac out to the prop-winged bird. But it is Frontier Air now, I remember, yet another airline re-shuffle in these unstable times. I check in and find out that the Frontier departure gate for Kodiak has been moved and is now at the other end of the terminal. I buy some crackers for dinner and roll my carry-on down the new hallway.

The tunnel is distant, twisting and empty; it is Kafka-esque, I decide, and I wonder, as I’m eating my crackers and rolling my suitcase, if some grotesque metamorphosis is even now rearranging my cells. But when I reach the end, I change my mind. A sudden city of people has appeared, crammed and clustered in a narrow cell of a waiting room. They all look strangely settled, as though they’ve been here for an age. I decide Kafka is out---and Sartre is in, in this chillingly accurate replica of “No Exit.”

I find out the weather in Kodiak is bad. That the last two planes, the Frontier dash-8 and the Alaska jet both flew gallantly all the way to Kodiak, looped successive ellipticals, in hopes of a fissure in the impenetrable fog and clouds, then defeated, circled back. This city in the cell, then, is populated with returnees, Loopers, fatigued but dogged people, trying again.

I know that feeling. I’ve done the Kodiak Loop too many times myself in my 32 years here. (My husband may hold the record, though---five loops, five tries to Kodiak before he finally touched ground.) Tonight, I just want to get home, rest my swollen cheek and throbbing jaw, from root canal surgery done the day before, on my own feather pillow.

I sit next to two women I know. We compare weather reports from our families back home. All reports agree---the weather’s getting worse. Heavy rain, heavy clouds, heavy fog, and winds coming up. A voice from the ceiling speaks, “We’re waiting on the weather to board, ladies and gentlemen. We’ll see what the weather wants to do. We’ll let you know as soon as we know if we’re going.”

Debbie and Christy and I decide they should just cancel. We should all go back to our hotels, go out to a really nice dinner (Orso’s, say Debbie and I ) and return to Kodiak tomorrow---well-fed, rested, swooping home in a single declarative flight, no questions (will we board? Will we land?) hanging. Fifteen minutes later the voice announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, the weather has improved enough to launch. If it doesn’t get better while we’re flying, we’ll land in Homer to refuel, and then take another look at it from there. We’ll be boarding in just a few moments.”

We roll our eyes at each other. It’s good enough to launch, but not likely good enough to land. Neither place, Anchorage or Homer is home, but getting stuck in Homer is worse than getting stuck in Anchorage. We slowly reconstitute ourselves, get up and dumbly, reluctantly stand in line. We all know we’re players in Sartre’s theatre after all, but we have to follow the script. We have to try, at least.

On board, the seats are full. No one bothers to look out the cloud-blinded windows. My seatmate mutters to herself, “This is why I don’t live in Kodiak anymore.” I entertain Debbie across the aisle with another flight story, this one of a three hour flight delayed in Seattle, then an unexpected midnight landing and refueling in Yakutat, in case we had to circle extra long before landing. We don’t talk about the planes that have crashed.

Fifty minutes pass. We’re past Homer now, surely. We’re going all the way, then. We feel the plane descend, hear the engine straining at another pitch. The landing gear drops mechanically; my seatmate and I exchange hopeful, nervous smiles. All eyes strain at the windows, trying to pierce the curtains of fog. We lean forward in our seats, pressing toward home, but still no sign of earth below. Someone behind me, across the aisle says “Look! I see some cliffs!” Hope stirs , the plane buzzes louder, our stomachs drop, a runway appears and we fall onto it gracelessly but beautifully.

A few months earlier, while traveling home to Kodiak from somewhere far away, I limped up to the ERA counter at the Anchorage airport. Almost home. One leg remaining. I was tired. I handed my commuter coupon to the woman behind the counter. There was a problem. She studied my coupon, reads my itinerary aloud to herself, “Okay, let’s see, Anchorage to Yuck, Yuck to Anchorage”.

I looked at her through night-flight eyes, blinked slowly, incredulously, then asked. “What did you say? Did you just call Kodiak, yuck??”

She laughed unselfconsciously. “Oh yeah. We all call it that. It’s the worse place we fly. That and Dutch Harbor. It’s always causing problems—wind, rain, fog, so hard to get in and out of. What a pain.”

She did not consider the fact that I might live there. She wanted me to feel sorry for her.

I have ten trips to make Outside these next few months, for speaking and teaching. I try to show up on stage at conferences and colleges and perform as though whisked in by my own Lear jet. As though I did not miss my other connections because I couldn’t get out of Kodiak, as though I had not flown all night and the next day to get there. As though the passage from this island to the rest of the world were not exhausting and harrowing every time. I try not to talk about it, this endless subject. And I try not to feel like a martyr for living in a place nicknamed “yuck.”

I’m not always successful. I don’t want to play the martyr---or the fool. Kodiak Island is not a stage, but I’m acting out what is most of all, true in this world--- we only imagine that we direct our lives. Our comings and goings, our entrances and exits are fragile, our intentions and desires controlled by winds and clouds and waters whose own travels are measured and announced, but largely unknown. I yield to this, in my own stubborn way, relieved to know the out-there world is so beyond my one self. I am glad to be here at all, to have any part to play in this stunning, wind-and fog wrought theatre.

I say that in my best moments. In my deepest heart, I want my planes to take off and land by my own perfect script. When they don’t, I know nothing else to do but this: to sit by the window, rehearsing my lines---again.


Leslie Leyland Fields is the author of Surviving the Island of Grace and Out on the Deep Blue. Her essays have appeared in "The Atlantic," "Best Essays Northwest," More Magazine, and many others. She teaches in Seattle Pacific University's (low-residency) MFA program and speaks often at other colleges, requiring nail-biting flights off stormy Kodiak Island.

Your turn: Great editors, teachers, and other nice people

I was so looking forward to writing this post today, and then hit one of those morning glitches -- a vandal broke into my p.o. box, the post office wants me to report what was stolen but besides a mystery package (from who? from where?) I can't know what's missing because I don't know what was there in the first place!

(Pant, pant; recover.)

But the world is still a nice place with good people, as these recent articles attest.

How about an editor who flies to where you live and hangs out for days, helping you edit? OK, the story comes from a few years ago, when publishing operated a little differently, but it's still amazing. The current Poets & Writers interview with Jonathan Karp (publisher and editor-in-chief of Twelve) includes a great anecdote about editing Mario Puzo. Karp and two other editors flew to Las Vegas, where Puzo preferred to work, and spent days working with the novelist, and nights gambling with him. Karp felt bad about losing some money Puzo had loaned him, but he later earned it back -- and cemented a relationship with Puzo, who believed the young editor was "lucky." Those were the days...

Also in the "nice people file," novelist Alexander Chee remembers in tender detail about being taught by Annie Dillard at Wesleyan. The essay is worth reading for the many fine pieces of writing advice Dillard imparted to her fortunate students. Kudos also to Chee for remembering and capturing that long-ago experience (1989) so well. And thanks to Moonrat -- nice person #4 -- for mentioning this great essay on her blog, editorial ass.

Did an agent, editor, fellow writer, or someone else, do something nice/helpful/extraordinary for you, lately or long ago? Help me forget about my stolen mail. Share the good stories here.

Postcard from Rome: The Discus Thrower

It’s disappointing – even a little chilling -- to realize that a passion for literature and art does not guarantee the creation of a healthy intellect or the blossoming of a gentle spirit.

Consider Hitler. An avid reader, he had 16,000 titles in his private library. Even at the end, when Soviet soldiers invaded his Berlin bunker, they found it stocked with several dozen books, according to author Timothy Ryback, author of Hitler’s Private Library (nicely summarized in this January New York Times article).

Hitler loved music, too, as I discovered in depth during the writing of my first novel, The Spanish Bow, in which a Spanish cellist contends with a request to perform for the dictator.

My latest adventures have taken me into the world of another of Hitler’s obsessions: the world of classical art.

With visions of Nazi Germany as the heir of all things classical, Hitler became entranced with a statue called The Discus Thrower, which is a Roman copy of an earlier, lost bronze by an artist named Myron. The statue was created at a cultural high point when Greek sculpture was becoming more realistic and naturalistic; the fact that it is dynamic, and captures an athletic moment no less, fit in perfectly with Hitler’s recent propaganda triumph as host of the 1936 Berlin Olympics as well as his desire to motivate a generation into becoming the physically fit “master race.”

In 1938, probably during his May visit to Italy, he managed to talk Mussolini’s government into releasing this privately owned masterpiece, despite the difficulties of certain export laws and the objections of some. (Later, the Nazis would have the opportunity to loot freely, but this was before the war; delicacy still mattered.)The price was set at 5 million lire.

Here, my newest novel-in-progress begins. “The Discus Thrower” takes place in summer 1938, over three intense days. It tells the story of a young, reserved, poitically naive art curator from Bavaria who is given the privileged duty of transporting the ancient statue north from Rome to Munich, a trip that quickly goes awry. Many disasters befall my art-loving protagonist, and Italy – in its dusty, confusing splendor -- lulls him into tricky situations, and into considering aspects of his past he has tried to forget. Body image, genetics, brotherly and passionate love all find their way into the story.

But this has been a formal post – and I meant it to be a postcard! Greetings to all my friends, colleagues and readers who kept this blog hopping while I was away. Until last week, I was enjoying a very fruitful research trip to Italy and Germany, the first highlight of which was seeing the real Discus Thrower itself -- by which I mean the Lancellotti Discobolus, for anyone interested in the particulars. The photo at top shows my two children sketching the statue in the National Museum of Rome, Palazzo Massimo facility.

Seeing the statue in person was a pleasure, and seeing it in relation to many lesser artworks from the same period, and a few more impressive ones, was essential to my understanding. Note, however, how empty this room is on the day we visited, as compared to the many other Rome/Florence museums (Uffizi, Borghese Villa) that were so crowded we could barely move through each room.

An ancient statue that once excited and inspired a frightening dictator poses in silence again.

Revision 101

As I mentioned last week, I’m in the midst of a self-directed revision workshop, working on two manuscripts at once. That might not be the best approach for some writers, but because I want to experiment with strategies I haven’t used before, I like repeating them in different contexts, feeling out what works and what doesn’t. I tackle a chapter a day in each manuscript. Warning: you may become as weary as I of revision before it’s all through.

I taught writing for twenty years, so I’ve walked plenty of emerging writers through the revision process. But almost all of it was in nonfiction. Stories offer their own set of challenges. Every writer and task is different, but in general, much of the process of discovery in nonfiction can be tackled in the prewriting stages. With fiction, I mostly just have to start writing, discovering voice and character and even themes and plot as the story unfolds. I stop here and there, tapping prewriting tricks like mapping to sort through the rough patches. Sometimes I get to the end before I start to revise. Sometimes I screech to a halt in the middle.

The manuscripts I’m revising in my self-imposed workshop are both finished. For all the revisions I’ve got under my belt, I’m still learning new ways of seeing my work. For instance, I’ve always made sure my chapter endings packed a punch. But opening lines for my chapters – those I’d never given much thought. Thanks, Donald Maass (The Fire in Fiction) for pointing out that the first line of a chapter is as important as the last. Duh. It makes a big difference. I’d also never reflected much on how chapters should begin (subtly, yes) with a character’s goal, or how each scene should have inner and outer turning points.

Reflecting on these revision strategies, maybe the nonfiction/fiction dichotomy is false. In the most engaging nonfiction, chapter opening and closings are vibrant. Goals are pondered; turning point tug readers along. More precisely, it's that classic rhetorical tools shouldn't be the only ones in the box when we revisit our writing.

Tools? Tricks? Formulae? To me, these are simply new ways of seeing. Because no matter how much literature you’ve read, analyzed, or taught, if it’s well done there’s a whole lot you can’t see - subtle shifts, ways you’re drawn to a character, the tug of the narrative. Robert Boswell (The Half-Known World) says it well: “Like sex, reading is both a simple delight and a complex one, a nearly effortless pleasure that nonetheless rewards study and labor.” Writing creates the effortless pleasure the way an accomplished host creates a memorable event, through a masterful blend of intuition, instinct, and a whole lot of effort.

49 Writers weekly round-up

Whether you're a Fairbanks author or visiting Fairbanks for the ASLA conference, we'd love to have you join us for another 49 Writers no-host face-to-face this Saturday, October 17 at 9 p.m. at the Westmark's Red Lantern lounge. An RSVP would be great (debv@gci.net), but if you don't get around to it, feel free to stop by anyhow. We'll only keep you out for an hour or so, and we promise a great (off the record) writerly exchange. For those I've not met before, here's a recent photo so you can find me...



...although I'll be minus the dog, the shades, and the mountains.

I'm also happy to report that we've acquired critical mass for the "already-pubbed" Anchorage writer's group mentioned in the last couple of round-ups. Our first meeting will be Monday, November 9, and we're still open for qualified member or two. If interested, email me at debv@gci.net.

A big congrats to Alaskan authors recently selected by The Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Arts and Culture Foundation for this year's Connie Boochever Fellowships in the literary and performing arts. The $2,500 fellowship is for emerging artists, and each year the disciplines alternate between performing, literary and visual arts. Three of this year's four awards went to writers: Anne Coray, poet, Port Alsworth; Joan Kane, writer, Anchorage; and Schatzie Schaefers, playwright, Anchorage.

Joan Kane is also curating the literary art portion of the "Virtual Subsistence" exhibition featuring Alaska Native artists. With catering by Tap Root Cafe and music by Reverse Retro, Virtual Subsistence opens with a reception tonight, October 16 from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the MTS Gallery at 3142 Mt. View Drive in Anchorage. Gallery Hours are Saturdays and Sundays, noon – 4 p.m. Participating writers include Donna Elliott Bach, Diane Benson,Rainey Higbee,Torin Jacobs/River Flowz,Joan Kane,Trina Landlord,Princess Lucaj,Rita Marshall,Buffy McKay,dg okpik,Ryan Olson,Cathy Rexford, and Susie Silook.

Big congrats also go out to Barrow author Debby Dahl Edwardson for the Booklist starred review of her first middle grade novel, Blessing's Bead, which comes out next month. From the review: "Edwardson, who married into Iñupiaq culture, envelops readers in both the stark Arctic settings and the warm communities, past and present. Concrete and symbolic references to the transforming power of language, names, and stories link the two narratives, but it’s the Nutaaqs’ rhythmic, indelible voices—both as steady and elemental as the beat of a drum or a heart—that will move readers most. A unique, powerful debut." Thanks to librarian and author Ann Dixon for bringing this to our attention.

Alaska Center for the Book is seeking nominations for its annual Contributions to Literacy in Alaska (CLIA) Awards, recognizing people and institutions who have made a significant contribution in literacy, the literary arts, or the preservation of the written or spoken word in Alaska. Previous CLIA award winners include librarians, teachers, writers, tutors, historians, booksellers, reading programs, web sites and others dedicated to making the world a better place through the gift of language. From Sisters in Crime to Babies & Books, more than 50 people and organizations have been honored over the past 17 years.

Alaska Center for the Book is the state's affiliate with the Center for the Book in the U.S. Library of Congress. Founded in 1991, ACB is a non-profit, all-volunteer organization aimed at stimulating public interest in literacy throughout Alaska through the spoken and written word. Aalska Center for the Book participates in Reading Rendezvous, Letters About Literature, LitSite Alaska, the National Book Festival, and other events and programs.

This year's CLIA Award nominations are due Nov. 6, 2009. The nomination form and information on past winners is available at www.alaskacenterforthebook.org. For more information, or to request a faxed nomination form, call (907) 764-1604 or e-mail carolben@gci.net

Kenai writers, here's you chance to tackle that novel: Amy Murrell, Municipal Liaison for the Kenai Peninsula NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) effort announces an informational meeting about NaNoWriMo on Thursday, October 22 at 6:30 at the Kenai Community Library. The library will host weekly write-ins during November for both the adult challenge and for the Young Writers Program that runs at the same time. Those who can't make the meeting can read all about it at the NaNoWriMo web site and are welcome to sign up and write even if they can't make it to the write-ins. For more information on the Kenai event, contact Amy at kenaiqueen2007@yahoo.com.

Alaska at 50, new from University of Alaska Press, commemorates Alaska's statehood anniversary with essays from some of today’s most noteworthy writers and researchers. Contributors include Susan A. Anderson, Carrie Irwin Brown, George Cannelos, Jocelyn Clark, Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Ann Dixon, Danna Fabe, Phyllis Fast, Vic Fischer, Sven Haakanson Jr., Veldee Hall, Mark Hamilton, Eric Heyne, Gary Holthaus, G. W. (Greg) Kimura, Nancy Lord, Dennis Metrokin, Jason Metrokin, Ken Ostercamp, Tadd Owens, James Ruppert, John Shively, Peggy Shumaker, Ronald Spatz, John Straley, Raymond Voley, and Charles Wohlforth.

The editor and a number of contributors will appear at the following events:
- UAA Campus Bookstore - October 20, 2009, 5:00-7:00 p.m.
- Barnes & Noble Anchorage - October 21, 2009, 6:00 p.m.
- Title Wave Books - October 23, 2009, 6:00-8:00 p.m.

Now distributed by the University of Alaska Press is Skijor With Your Dog by Mari Høe‐Raitto and Carol Kaynor, just been released in an updated 4th printing. As noted in the publisher's press release, "The foreword by four-time Iditarod Champion Susan Butcher is a powerful endorsement of how much emphasis the authors have placed on dog care and speaks to the powerful bond that develops between dog and owner." This latest edition includes updated resources and bibliography.

Thanks to Arne Bue for forwarding a post by author Jakon Roth that was also on my radar. Roth, a thriller writer, offers up numbers from his royalty statement, comparing ebook sales through his traditional publishers with ebooks he has published himself on Kindle. His numbers confirm what Ned Rozell suggested here a few months back: some authors, at least, can make more money for their work (and possibly have a much more positive experience) via Amazon or other high-powered self-pubbing platforms. The caveat: it helps to have built a readership through traditional outlets, as Roth has, and you'd better be ready to devote substantial effort to marketing. Roth's analysis also points out a win-win for authors and their readers: low-priced ebooks outperform higher priced ebooks, hands down. Among other factors controlled by self-pubbed authors is price. So - no more crying in your beer because your book is out of print. If you can get the results Roth did, you're better off getting your rights back and emarketing your own work.

From the announcement of this year's National Book Award Finalists come two items noteworthy here. First, Marcel Theroux's apocalyptic novel set in the north, aptly titled Far North, is among the finalists. And if you've been paying attention to our posts, you've noticed a lot of folks speculating that the future of publishing is in small, independent presses. I expect the good folks at UA Press have taken note: another finalist is Bonnie Jo Campbell's American Salvage, pubbed by none other than Wayne State University Press.

The Cheater's Sonnet: A Guest Post by John Morgan

This month's 49 Writers featured author John Morgan admits to being "seduced by iambics" while exploring the "cheater sonnet." Maybe we should coin a phrase: Alaskan sonnet?

Last month around the equinox, Anchorage poet Tom Sexton drove up to Fairbanks for a reading. His latest book For the Sake of the Light: New and Selected Poems was recently published by the University of Alaska Press. He spoke informally to students in the afternoon and gave a terrific reading in the evening.

Between these two events, at dinner, we remembered that the last time we’d met was 15 years ago at a party in NYC — typical of how distances in Alaska enforce separation. The party was given by the Paris Review and took place at George Plimpton’s apartment, but George just said hello and waved goodbye - on his way to some more pressing event in Pittsburgh.

In his talk to students, Tom said he’d recently written a collection of 48 eight-line poems, formal poems that actually rhyme. He noted that form and rhyme were not the way we were taught to write poetry back in the Sixties, when the big influences were William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound. This struck a chord because I’ve recently been working in form myself. Eight lines is a bit too minimalist for me so I’ve been writing sonnets. I just shipped off four of them to an annual contest given by a journal called The Formalist, but I have to say that mine probably don’t measure up to their rigorous standards. I call the form I use “the cheater’s sonnet.”

What most people know about sonnets is that they have 14 lines and a strict rhyme scheme, either Shakespearean or Petrarchan, the rules for which you can look up if you want. For me, a sonnet has 14 lines, and rhymes whenever I can manage it. This is a big help in letting me say what I want to say, rather than being dictated to by the form. Also, most sonnets are in iambic pentameter—da-dah, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah, da-dah. This can get pretty monotonous. (If you check out past contest winners at The Formalist website, you’ll see what I mean.)

So in addition to cheating on rhyme, I cheat on meter. Instead of using iambic pentameter, I use syllabics. A normal i-p line has 10 or 11 syllables (allowing for feminine endings), but I even fudge on that. Nine syllables are fine with me. And occasionally I’ll throw in a line with 8 or 12. And as for rhyming, I use slant rhyme freely. As William Stafford used to say, sound connections can happen in many different ways. All words sound more like other words than they do like silence and sometimes a word that doesn’t actually rhyme can sound just right in context —s ee Emily Dickinson for numerous examples.

What I most want to avoid is messing up the natural order of the sentence to work in a rhyme — e.g., writing “the sky blue” when I need a rhyme for “true.” Nothing sounds more stilted in a contemporary poem than this kind of forced rhyming.

Once you get clued into the cheater’s sonnet, you start to notice that this sort of slacker behavior has its own tradition. Lots of past poets mixed their forms, using a Shakespearean octave with a Petrarchan sestet, for example, or going even further afield, as Keats does in his rebellious poem “On the Sonnet,” which attacks the traditional forms ast oo restrictive and acts up by rhyming in a very haphazard fashion. It was, not surprisingly, the last sonnet that Keats ever wrote.

So what does a cheater’s sonnet look like? I have to admit that, unless I’m paying close attention, it looks very much like a conventional sonnet. Here’s a recent example:

TWO VIEWS OF THE WRECKAGE
for the artist, Kes Woodward

[Note: Climate change models show interior Alaska
becoming dryer while coastal areas flood worldwide]

Kibitzing over your shoulder as you
sketch those billowing clouds above the
staved-in houseboat in its dried up slough,
I sense the berrying bear that ambled by a
day or two ago leaving this gritty substance,
fear, like a pheromone, hanging there
and there—and because we codgers share
a wish to buck the laws of change and chance

you cache the present scene while I flash on
distant glittering Venice seen back when
the band played gaudy Liszt and Beethoven
and Sputnik shimmered over St Mark’s Square
where now high waters climb the palace stair
as ice-sheets thaw and toxic tides roll in.

Reading it over, I see that this poem, loose and prosy to start with, becomes more formal as it progresses, as if the cheater in me is being seduced by iambics in the process of writing the poem. I feel a little guilty about this, but not too guilty. In a cheater’s sonnet, anything goes, even traditional meter.

Over the past year I’ve written about a dozen such sonnets — which the folks in my writers’ group tell me is probably enough. But I reserve the right to keep on trying. Maybe one day I’ll get it right.

Alaska Quarterly Review: Welcoming the Season

I've heard that more books are sold in the last quarter of the year than in the other three quarters combined, and while the holidays must certainly play a part, I think there's also something about fall and the prospect of winter that makes us want to hunker down an abudance of good reading material. We've said it before, but let's say it again now that the Fall/Winter edition is on the stands: Alaska Quarterly Review (AQR)is an affordable way to do exactly that.

With a cover price of $6.95, you don't have to feel guilty if you don't read it cover to cover. It's all good stuff - AQR has a well-earned reputation for quality - and you'll find a huge variety in content and style. My favorites say plenty about me as a reader and writer - I'm more Ann Patchett than Kurt Vonnegut, more Willa Cather than James Joyce.

This issue opens with some remarkable nonfiction, including Dennis Lang's "Tim," the story of a wounded Iraqi war veteran told from multiple points of view, including his mother, his girlfriend, and his social worker. In a narrative that manages to be at once poignant and matter-of-fact, it's easy to forget that you're not reading fiction: "When Tim woke up he had no idea half his head was missing. Everybody said don't touch your head or your left eye. So he looked in a mirror and went and got his left eye taken out." I was also quite taken by Margaret MacInnis's "The Last Time." Told in sixteen vignettes with titles like "The Last Time My Father Left My Mother" and "The Last Time I Rocked My Father in My Arms," it left me with the odd sensation that I'd suspended belief - that this couldn't be true, though it was.

Of special interest to Alaskans and fans of Alaska is Marilyn Sigman's "Class Notes: A Short History of Permanence." Juxtaposing a reunion of her idealistic Stanford classmates with the new reality of global warming, the Alaskan author writes, "I am hurtling downward like everyone else in a material way, my mind stuffed with the artistic and technological creations of my culture that hide my dependence on the strands of a web of relations. What is truly global is that we are all going down together - the Native Alaskan elders in their shape-shifting Arctic coastal villages, the Buddhists, the New Age Posessors of esoteric secrets, the clueless."

Among the short stories in this issue of AQR, I especially enjoyed Karen Heuler's "Joey, the Upstairs Boy," in which an elderly, self-proclaimed "harsh realist" approaches a relationship with the troubled young man who lives upstairs. Another favorite is Scott Nadelson's "If You Needed Me," showing with remarkable development of character in the consequences of a grandfather's near-disaster on each member of the family. I also liked Sallie Bingham's "Heaven," in which an aging woman frets over an unlikely vision. I'm not sure how this thread of aging characters plays into my choices, but rest assured: in the AQR, there's something for everyone.

Make your own rules

Andromeda mentioned last month that for much of grade school she felt like a prisoner. I, on the other hand, loved grade school. It was more than the books and the library and the special programs some teachers way back then managed to cobble together even in the absence of federal mandates and guidelines. I hate to admit it, because it sounds so un-writerly and un-Alaskan, but looking back I think I also liked the rules and the structure - the same aspects of school that make it feel like jail.

Not very auspicious beginnings for someone who now (more or less) makes a living being creative. Yes, I grew up and found more excitement in ambiguity and big ideas and discovery than in rules. A good creative day of drafting fiction beats anything else I'd want to do for a living. But I still admit a sick little fondness for the rules of grammar, the way it all makes sense when you take the time to understand.

When I first started publishing, I'd say with only a touch of smugness that I enjoyed revision. Only after my editor got the boot and I skidded off with an agent who was, at the time, nearly as clueless as I did I discover that my love of revision had a lot to do with having a good editor who offered - you guessed it - guidelines, which are the next best thing to rules. She rarely suggested how to fix problems, but she pointed out all the parts that needed attention, and I got to wrestle around with ways to make them shine.

Those days are gone, not just for me but for a lot of writers, especially those breaking in. With editors and agents stretched to their limits, revision is much more a do-it-yourself proposition. If you want someone to take a serious look at your manuscript, it had better be in darned good - make that great - shape. After the initial draft, structure-lovers like me have to make their own rules for revision, setting the highest standards for every aspect of their novels, then rising to meet them.

Good readers help. As happens in Alaska, mine left the state. No matter, I thought, with a couple of New York novels under my belt. I've got my agent, my editor, myself. That was a decade ago. I've since wised up, which is why I've put out a call for other published writers looking for a writing group. (We could still use a couple more; email me at debv@gci.net if you're interested).

What about those who aren't published yet - where do they get their readers? Beyond groups that have no pub-credit criteria, there are conferences and workshops where experienced writers, editors, and agents offer short critiques. Besides the guidance, there's great networking to be done at these events. For us in Alaska, this often means traveling Outside. We've tossed around the idea of occasional 49 Writer workshops in Anchorage, maybe with a manuscript critique option, using local talent and with a small cost to make it worth the writer's time - say $30 for a two-hour session, with a minimum of 10 participants or something to that effect. I have no idea whether we'd find enough writers to run the workshops or enough writers to attend; I'm interested in what you think.

49 Writers Interview: Phyllis Movius

It was mostly a man's world - Alaska early in the twentieth century. But the women who came have fascinated readers since. A welcome new addition to books about Alaskan women is A Place of Belonging: Five Founding Women of Fairbanks, Alaska, by Phyllis Demuth Movius, fifteen years in the making. Movius talks here about how she transformed the project from a graduate thesis into a full-fledged book and what she discovered about pioneer women in contrast with Alaskans today.

So many fascinating women played significant roles in Alaska’s history. What spurred your interest in women of the northern frontier, and how did you decide to focus specifically on the founding women of Fairbanks?

My husband and I spend time at our recreational cabin on the Good[aster River near Delta Junction, in the Interior. When I manually pump water, haul firewood, and stoke the wood stove it gets me thinking about what life was like a hundred years ago when this was a standard day-to-day life style for many women in this country. In particular, I started questioning how women lived their lives in the north. Simultaneously, I began a graduate program in Northern Studies at the University of Alaska Fairbanks which allowed me to develop some of these thoughts. My thesis was about women in early Fairbanks and how they lived, and what role they played in the development of this community.

What factors helped you choose the five women featured in your book?

Anyone who does historical research knows that it takes a lot of raw material to produce a polished paper. So, to a degree, the amount of available archival material influenced specifically which women I chose to feature in the book. But, further than that, I wanted to present women who represented different levels of education, different backgrounds and socio economic levels, and various vocations. Thus, I chose a professional writer, a doctor turned lawyer, a homemaker and mother, an educator and social advocate, and a dreamer whose business plans were thwarted by an early death.

How long was the process of bringing this book from the initial concept into print? In what ways was the process different from that of your previous books?

This book began as my graduate thesis. After completion of my master’s degree the project stalled even though I had the idea in the back of my head that I would like to expand it somewhat and seek publication. Ultimately I got back into the research and submitted the manuscript to the University of Alaska Press which had published a previous book of mine. Due to some staff changes, the manuscript languished until Elisabeth Dabney came along with a flicker of excitement in her eyes at the idea of seeing this material in print. From beginning to end it was over fifteen years in the making! My previous publications were much more deliberate and required far less time to reach completion.

The book includes many fascinating archival photos, but the cover is particularly striking. Tell us about how it came to be, and how it reflects the content of the book.

The book cover was designed by Dixon Jones, a graphic designer at the Elmer E. Rasmuson Library at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dixon created the composition using a photograph of each of the five women whose biographical portraits appear in the book. The photos were black and white, but Dixon gave them color with a computer program which brought them to life. Dixon is obviously very talented, and I feel fortunate he was able to work on this project.

In the book’s conclusion, you note that your current life in a rural cabin is in some ways more taxing than that of pioneer women who embraced rather than shunned modern conveniences. To what extent do you think these early women would understand the notion of living purposefully “off-grid” and “away from it all”?

Fir of all, I must clarify that I live in a very modern house on the edge of Fairbanks. The rural cabin is strictly a recreational get-away.
I believe all of the women I present in this book would understand perfectly the necessary chores required to live comfortably such as stoking a wood stove and getting water from other than a faucet. However, for the same reason that I do not care to live full time at our rural cabin, the women of early Fairbanks did not enjoy the idea of living in isolation. From the beginning Fairbanks had a sophisticated infrastructure that included electricity, telephones, and maybe most important, a very active social structure. A look through copies of old Fairbanks newspapers indicates that the arts were prevalent in the form of theatre and concerts. Local government interested many who helped develop the mining camp into a permanent community, and there was no lack for parties of all kinds. And, almost any occasion such as the Fourth of July, or summer solstice warranted celebration. I am not sure that the women I present in this book could be considered to have lived purposefully “away from it all”... they were in the thick of things and were part of what made Fairbanks home to so many.