Cinthia on Saturdays: The World Through Writerly Glasses

by Cinthia Ritchie

I’m wearing my John Cheever glasses today.

I feel waspish and writerly. I feel like dressing up in my best clothes, taking the elevator down to the maid’s room, folding my skirt and blouse over a chair and writing all day in my underwear.

Of course I hate wearing nice clothes and there’s no elevator in my apartment building, but no matter. It’s the glasses that lend such ideas, that make me feel that by connecting, however vaguely, however foolishly, to Cheever’s ghost, I can accomplish anything.

I can finish my novel, write an award-winning essay, publish poems so real and true they will be folded in wallets and carried around for years.

Armed with thick dark frames and the Cheever spirit, I can’t help but have a good writing day.

If for some reason I stumble and flail and my Cheever glasses don’t live up to their promise, I have others to carry me through: My Joyce Carol Oates glasses. My Margaret Atwood glasses. My Virginia Woolf glasses.

I’m not entirely sure if all of these writers wear or wore glasses, but that’s not the point. What matters is that I feel like them when I put on these glasses. I feel confident and tough, like a real, bona fide writer. Though sometimes when I’m slumped over my desk late at night, one of my many pairs of glasses sliding down my nose, I panic: What I’m wearing the wrong pair? What if I’m writing long Joyce Carol Oates sentences that go on and on for paragraphs (pages!) when I should be writing strong, witty Margaret Atwood wordplay?

What if I’m channeling the wrong writer, the wrong persona? What if, oh dear god, I’m ruining my novel by wearing the wrong glasses?

My foray into the world of writing glasses began a few months ago when I read an article on slate.com about a glasses blog that offered advice on purchasing inexpensive frames and lenses over the internet . Of course I checked it out. I was hoping to buy a pair of frames that would make me look smart yet attractive in a throwing-the-glasses-off-and-hauling-a-good-looking-man-to-bed sort of way. What I ended up with was a pair of very strange dark blue glasses with frames that bent in a peculiar angle around my face. They cost $18.95 with shipping, and when the package arrived, I excitedly put them on.

I didn’t look as I imagined. In fact, I looked quite dreadful. The color was wrong for my complexion, and so was the shape. Yet I wore them all night, and when I suddenly found myself in the midst of a mad writing spurt, I knew right away who to thank: My glasses.

Finally, after three nights with almost no sleep, when I was pale and shaking from exhaustion, I stood in the bathroom and peered at myself in the mirror.

“Well for heaven’s sake,” I said out loud, “I look like Margaret Atwood.”

I looked like nothing of the sort but I felt like her, I felt like one of her characters, tough and knowing and unassumingly vulnerable.

After Margaret came Joyce Carol Oates, large pair frames that gave me a scholarly, owlish dignity. Cheever soon followed with thick solid glasses that lent a no-nonsense, masculine grit. Woolf catered to my tender side: a pair of rimless lenses that gave my eyes a look of sad determination.

I keep these glasses folded on my bookshelf and sometimes I imagine they come alive and morph into the writers they resemble. They gather in my living room late at night. I pour us all orange juice and we lean against fat pillows, wiggle our toes, talk about writing. I tell them how I’m having trouble ending my novel, how I’m terrified of making mistakes, how I can’t let go. They nod and share stories of their own work.

We sit together for hours, writing and talking and daydreaming. In the dim light from the dirty aquarium, our glasses glow like tiny, hopeful mirrors.


Cinthia Ritchie is a former Anchorage Daily News feature writer and columnist who writes for Alaska Newspapers. She’s the recipient of a Rasumon Foundation Individual Artist Award, the Alaska Council on the Arts Connie Boochever Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize nomination plus residencies at Hedgebrook and Hidden River Arts. Her fiction, essays and poetry can be found in over 30 literary magazines.

49 writers weekly roundup

At Title Wave last week, Alaskan author Willie Hensley pulled me aside with a great piece of news: his book has been reviewed in the New York Times. Way to go, Willie. It's great to see some press for our state that has nothing to do with Political Action Committees and $2000 used shoes.

Tired of have to click a button every time you want to visit 49 Writers? Now you can subscribe to by email, and our posts will show up in your inbox. The sign-up icon is in the sidebar at right. Also in the sidebar you'll find a list of our upcoming featured authors - a stellar line-up, if we do say so ourselves - each of whom will be weighing in with four posts per month beginning in March.

Alaska Sisters in Crime (AKSinC) is switching their meetings to the third Wednesday of every month. On Wednesday, February 18 members will join the public at 7:00 pm at the Campbell Creek Science Center for the presentation "When CSI Meets Indiana Jones" (sponsored by the Bureau of Land Management). AKSinC has also issued a Call for Manuscripts for their upcoming anthology A Stranger Comes to Town. Student writers from selected villages are eligible, with a deadline of March 1. For details, visit the AKSinC website.

To promote his new anthology Wild Moments, Michael Engelhard will be making the rounds in Southcentral in March. Events include a March 5 reading at the UAA bookstore along with a same-day luncheon with the Alaska Press Communicators, a March 6 signing at Barnes and Noble, a March 7 fundraiser at Terra Bella Cafe, a March signing at Title Wave,a March 8 reading at Eagle River Nature Center (possibly with live raptor), as well as a March 8 reading at Pandemonium in Wasilla.

Finally, some reminders about events mentioned earlier. On January 31 Mr. Whitekeys will host literary readings from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Anchorage Museum - the final literary event for the Freeze Project. Promoting his memoir Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, Willie Hensley will be back in Anchorage on February 6 (7 p.m., UAA Bookstore) and Thursday, February 12 (7 p.m., Anchorage Museum).

On Saturday, January 31 from 2-4 p.m., David Marusek is doing a book launch for Mind over Ship at Gulliver's in Fairbanks, and on Saturday, February 7, he's reading at 6 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, also in Fairbanks. And don't forget the Stabenow signing of Whisper to the Blood on Saturday, February 21, at 6 pm signing at Title Wave Books in Anchorage.

February 5 is the deadline for the annual writing/broadcasting/video/photo contest from Alaska Professional Communicators (formerly Alaska Press Women). And the genre for the Alaska Writer's Guild's March Bi-Monthly Contest is horror. Deadline for submission is March 5; only members may submit. Deadlines are also coming up for Secret Press USA (today!), the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest, the Butcher Scholar Award, and the New Women Media Entrepreneurship Award.

E. B. White in Alaska, 1923

John Muir in Alaska – yes, we’ve all read about that. But E.B. White in Alaska? The author of Charlotte’s Web wrote a terrific essay called “The Years of Wonder,” collected in Essays of E.B. White (Harper & Row, 1977). I don’t know how Alaska anthologists – myself included – have overlooked this touching, funny, surprisingly self-deprecating gem. (I heard about it only recently from a local book club friend, Nora.)

In the essay, White is inspired just after Alaska statehood passes to remember the highlights and mishaps of a youthful trip he made north in 1923, when he attached himself to a San Francisco Chamber of Commerce group of “Boston capitalists” traveling 8,300 miles to Alaska and Siberia aboard a private steamer called the Buford.

“I was rather young to be so far north,” he wrote, “but there is a period near the beginning of every man’s life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.”

White was an incompetent reporter who had lost his job (the author of The Elements of Style – incompetent?) – and he decided to risk the trip, hoping he could find work along the way. He ends up working on the ship first as a saloonsman, then as the ‘firemen’s messboy,’ at the beck and call of a rough group of men who pressure him to steal delicacies from the better-heeled passengers. He was a “lamb set down among wolves,” and his gleeful descriptions of the bad conditions and foul-mouthed company remind me of George Orwell in Down and Out in Paris and London, also set in the 1920s.

There is historical trivia in the piece -- White and passengers are in Cordova when they hear about the death of President Warren G. Harding, who had recently visited Seward. (Didn't he get sick after eating some bad seafood? Not from our state, surely.) There is literary trivia in the piece -- White works alongside a saloonsman and competing diarist named Wilbur (inspiration for the fictional pig, perhaps?)

But what I loved best in this essay was tone, a tone that greatly benefited from the maturation and fermented good humor made possible by the passage of nearly four decades. The young White desperately wanted to be a wise poet on his trip, though he concedes he was a “mighty tired poet” most of the time. He includes his laugh-out-loud bad verse and overreaching prose to demonstrate. For example: “A man must have something to cling to. Without that he is as a pea vine sprawling in search of a trellis.” He concedes: “Obviously, I was all asprawl, clinging to Beauty, which is a very restless trellis.” The previous lost journalism job is recalled as “one more trellis (that) collapsed on me.”

Writing for posterity, rather than for an immediate cruiseship tourist market, White is able to admit that the sea passage was downright dull, most of the time, and shore stops weren’t much better. Just a few samples: “Ketchikan was our first Alaskan port of call and the scene of the passengers’ first disillusionment.”

Later, the group arrives at Taku Glacier, and the passengers dress up and prepare to be amazed by a thundering glacier, only to find out that “Taku, in the manner of glaciers, was sulking in its tent and taking its own sweet time about discharging into the sea; it needed prodding.” The passengers hang at the rail for an hour, while a crewmember fires a rifle at the ice, trying to force the glacier to calve. Much later, a piece of ice finally breaks away, but most of the passengers miss it, having wearily retreated to the dining saloon.

Even farther north, at Unalaska, some passengers – “ineffably sad and uprooted” -- give up on tourism altogether, choosing to stay on the boat rather than explore shore, where there are no guarantees of seeing anything special. White, on the other hand, heads ashore alone and experiences one of those truly wondrous moments that happen after false expectations have ebbed, to be replaced by spontaneous appreciation. “By some standards, the place could have been called dead, but, walking the length of Unalaska at the foot of the green, tumbled hills, alone and wonder-struck, I felt more alive than I had ever felt before in my life.”

But worry not, the epiphanies and clear, honest writing don’t last long. White returns to the perspective of his youthful, “dippy” (his word) self, ending the essay with more bad poetry. Just a taste from a romantic poem called “Chantecler”, which read aloud at the dinner table the other night, had my kids and me laughing out loud. It gets flatter and funnier with each successive reading:

“How many orders of beef have you passed over the counter,
Girl with white arms, since I’ve been gone?
How many times have you said,
‘Gravy?’
Your arms are still white,
And you’re still the thing in all the room
That transcends foodstuffs.”

Alaska writing retreats

Earlier this month when Deb and I interviewed each other, the subject of perfect writing retreats came up. It was such a fun question, I wanted to open it up to readers: What is your ideal Alaska writing retreat, real or imagined? And -- perhaps this is a different question -- where have you actually gotten your best writing accomplished?

Pictured here is a lovely rental house outside Ketchikan that I had the pleasure of renting for about a week last summer, while researching a book about the Tongass National Forest for Alaska Geographic. There was no driveway down to the little coastal house, just a steep path through Jurassic-thick woods, with lots of bear scat to remind us we weren't alone. The tides rose each day, swallowing up most of the beach, and offering a perfect place to launch our kayaks. I used this place as a base, but didn't write in the house very much, because I was busy doing interviews in town. And all too quickly, at the end of the week, we had to pack up and go. I didn't want to leave. I'd only kayaked twice, all too briefly; I hadn't gotten tired of staring out the window at the salmon leaping everywhere.

Maybe a house like this is too beautiful. I think I've gotten the most written at a grungy Wasilla motel with dirty carpeting, just off the highway, where I closed the blinds and burrowed into my imaginary world for three days and nights, fueled by Doritos, pizza, coffee, and red wine.

What's your story?

A quote from John Updike, who died from lung cancer this week at the age of 76:
"The essential support and encouragement comes from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it."

You know you're a published writer

You know you're a published writer when strangers come up to you and say things like, "I've always wanted to write a book about my dog," or "I have this idea for a book" or "Could you read my manuscript about hobgoblins and ice cream?"

Alas, some days I barely have time to read my own manuscripts. But like most of us who've wiggled through the narrow funnel to publication, I do want to help new writers. So when I received this recent request, I asked if it would be okay to answer in a post:

"I dearly hope that you can lend me some direction and advice...my resources are limited as well as my budget...however I have been contemplating writing a children's book series for some time and have finally developed my idea and made the decision to run with it; it will be targeted towards 5-10year olds with the theme being all about Alaska. I don't know where to start or how to go about submitting it for publication...or if there are any local (alaska) places I can take it to first. I would appreciate your response."

Lots of people think about writing, and a big percentage of those think about writing for children. Maybe it's because kids' books are short and approachable, or maybe they still feel connected to the books they read growing up. In any event, the first big step toward publication in any genre is committing your project to paper, for which this writer - I'll call her Tami - should be commended.

It's also good to have an age group in mind when you're writing for children. But Tami's target of five to ten year olds is too large in kid years. Five-year-olds are mostly read to, while ten-year-olds read independently. If her project is less than (give or take) 800 words and meant to be read aloud, then it should fit within 32 pages and follow the conventions for a picture book, roughly for ages four through eight. Longer projects are for middle grade readers.

Tami says she's writing "all about Alaska." That's a big topic - like her age range, it's probably too big and too nebulous to attract the attention of a publisher. She'd be wise to study Alaskan children's books that are already on the market to see what makes her concept unique.

Yes, there are regional publishers of Alaskan children's books - Sasquatch, Graphic Arts North, and McCoy and Blackburn come to mind. But even in that small niche the competition is huge. Tami needs a smart query letter that distinguishes her project from everything else on the market, a query that pitches her project in the same strong voice that (we hope) permeates her manuscript, a query that proves she's professional and knows what she's doing. Agent Nathan Bransford has some beginning tips for writing queries.

As she refines her project and seeks publishers, Tami would do well to connect with other children's writers through professional organizations like the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Likewise, there are great online listservs and critique groups for children's writers. A current copy of the Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market is an invaluable resource for children's writers.

Since Tami mentions her limited budget, I feel compelled to make this point: she's not going to get rich writing children's books. Not even close. So hopefully her motivation is primarily her love of books and writing, and hopefully she has a nice day job or some other infusion of cash to live on.

Now for the rest of you. Writers, what advice (it doesn't have to be genre-specific) do you have for newbies like Tami? And others hoping to be published - what additional questions do you have?

Advice from Author Nancy White Carlstrom: Read and Persist

One of the Alaskan authors who helped me along the road to publication was Nancy White Carlstrom. With over 50 published books to her credit, Nancy inspired a community of writers by bringing the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators to Alaska. After 18 years in the state, years she says were her most productive, she now lives and works in Seattle.

Tomorrow I plan to address questions from an Alaskan writer who wonders how to get her children’s book published. But first, let’s catch up with Nancy, one of the leaders in the field, who offers great advice about publishing and persistence.

In second grade I wrote my first poems and stories and ever since have been a writer.
During my high school years I worked in the Children’s Department of the local
library in my hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania. That’s really where I developed a love for children’s books.

After teaching first and second grades for four years and studying children’s books
for two years, I opened The Secret Garden Children’s Bookshop in Seattle. For over six years I introduced children and families to good books. What a joy that was! But after our first son, Jesse, was born I decided to focus on him and writing. So I sold the bookshop to a friend. It has a third owner and has been in business for over thirty years.

Moving to Alaska gave my writing an incredible boost. We moved to Fairbanks on
January 15, 1987, so we jumped right into winter. It was a magical time.
Everything was new and fresh and the world around us gave me lots of book ideas. Our boys were preschool and toddler ages and so picture books were part of our
everyday life. It was the most productive writing time of my life.

My first book, Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?, was published in 1986. The eighties and early nineties were wonderful years for picture books, especially for
the poetic ones I tend to write. It’s been much more difficult for the picture book writer the past ten years. Publishers that used to be open to all kinds of books, even the “quiet ones,” want instant bestsellers. Celebrity books are attractive because no matter what the writing is like, the author already has name and fame.

My advice today for people wanting to write for children is really the same advice
I gave twenty years ago. READ! READ! READ! Someone told me once, “I don’t want to read picture books because I’m afraid I might take something from them and put into my manuscripts.” But reading good books helps a person write good books. Something I take away from my favorite picture book may end up in one I write, but you wouldn’t know it. That special “something” inspired me, but I made it my own; in my hands, it took different shape.

The second bit of advice I have is PERSIST! PERSIST! PERSIST! If you cannot stand getting rejections for your manuscript, it may be difficult to become a published writer of children’s books. And if your stories never leave the file drawer or computer, you will never know. I continue to collect rejection letters although I’ve had over fifty children’s books published. That really is part of the business.

Just now the doorbell rang. Fed Ex left me a set of first proofs for an upcoming picture book. It is always a thrill to see one’s book at different stages. It reminds me that I’m very glad I didn’t give up.

After having one or many books come out every year from 1986 to 2004, I have had a gap of five years. In part this relates to the tough market, but also to various personal reasons. Even though each manuscript was accepted at a different time, I have the following three picture books coming out in 2009:

This is the Day, illustrated by Richard Cowdry, Zonderkidz
It’s Your First Day of School, Annie Claire, illustrated by Margie Moore, Abrams Books for Young Readers
Mama, Will it Snow Tonight, illustrated by Paul Tong, Boyds Mills Press

I have lots of other picture books in progress or being considered by editors. But what I would like to work on are my unfinished novels, one middle-grade and two YA.
Years before I became published, when someone asked what I did, I would say I try to
write children’s books. I guess I’m still in the stage of thinking I “try” to write chapter books. Hopefully, one of these days, I will simply say, “I’m working on a chapter book” and do it!

49 writers weekly roundup

Victoria Lord of the Rasmuson Foundation this week affirmed what our roundup shows - Alaska boasts a lot of talented writers, and they've been very busy.

Here at 49 Writers, our quarterly book club is reading Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves for online discussion March 7-8. Our Northern Favorites shelf is open for nominations (one book per person) until February 14. And we're in the processing of selecting monthly featured authors for 2009. We're also separating our growing calendar into "events" and "deadlines," with both to be found in the sidebar instead of way down at the bottom of the page.

AlaskaDispatch.com has also launched a new design, with room to expand and offer a greater range of stories. They encourage Alaskan authors to share commentary for the Talk of the Tundra blog. Think of it as a letter to the editor of up to 750 words. It can be on any topic related to Alaska. Check out the submissions page at AlaskaDispatch.com.

Speaking of the Alaska Dispatch, they'll probably be reporting soon, if they haven't already, that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is edging closer to a book deal. Those of us who aren't tired of such news can read more at Galleycat.

Alaskan publisher Barbara Farris of 40 Below Ink might not be in the running for the Palin deal, but she does announce that their first book, chick-lit/mystery, is nearing release. She plans to distribute advance reading copies to published authors (or people with an Alaskan "platform," i.e. mayor, Iditarod winner, etc.)who might be willing to provide blurbs. If you'd like to be included, email Barbara at lemonpie@alaska.net and she'll provide details.

The Wrangell Mountains Center is pleased to host visiting writer Scott Russell Sanders in McCarthy for 2009's Wrangell Mountains Writing Workshop. Registration for the workshop is open now.

Flight of the Goose by Lesley Thomas will be studied in the world
literature class at UAF Kuskokwim Campus in winter 2009, and again at Boston
University's graduate theology class. Book clubs in Bethel, Glenallen and Juneau have also invited Thomas to attend discussions of her book this spring via
teleconference. She has already teleconferenced with Nome, Vermont and
Milwaukee book clubs and with a scholar in Austria who used the novel for a
dissertation on "Alaska and Identity."

Richard Chiappone was featured Monday (Jan. 19 - sorry, this came in late for last week's update) on the BBC Radio 3 show called The Verb, a program devoted to literary matters. He spoke about the community of writers in Homer, and Professor Ron
Spatz, editor of Alaska Quarterly Review, discussed statewide literary matters including Native Alaskan writers who have been features in AQR. Chiappone also reports publication of a poem in the February/ March issue of
Gray's Sporting Journal.

With L.A. Theatreworks bringing their staged versions of War of the Worlds and The Lost World to Alaska, the Anchorage Concert Association is hosting a contest for high school who write their own ten to fifteen minute radio plays. Radio script submissions are due January 28. For details, call ACA’s Education and Outreach Director, Erynn Smith at 272-1471 or visit http://www.anchorageconcerts.org/works/documents/wowcontest.pdf .

Secret Press USA needs one or two poems by Alaskan writers for their anthology themed "how you see America." Visit www.secretpressusa.org for details. The deadline is January 30th.

Recently, Amazon.com and Penguin Group (USA) announced the second annual Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA), an international competition seeking fresh new writing voices. One Grand Prize winner will receive a full publishing contract with Penguin including a $25,000 advance. Details, including official rules, can be found at www.amazon.com/abna. Manuscript submissions open on February 2 and close when 10,000 entries have come in, or on February 8, whichever comes first.

Chapter 4 of Whisper to the Blood, Dana Stabenow's 16th Kate Shugak novel, is now available online at Dana's web site.The book launches Tuesday, February 17th at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona. On Saturday, February 21, there's a 6 pm signing at Title Wave Books in Anchorage, and on Tuesday, March 3, Dana will be chatting with the Danamaniacs on Chatzy at 5pm Alaska time/9pm Eastern. For details visit www.danastabenow.com.

Author Ann Chardonet, who lived 34 years in Alaska but retired to North Carolina two years ago, brings to our attention several opportunities related to women and writing. The Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry National Center seeks applicants for 2009-2010 Butcher Scholar Award, welcoming applications for innovative projects that promise to deepen understanding of the history of diverse women in the historical and contemporary West. Deadline for proposals is March 27, 2009. For details, visit http://www.autrynationalcenter.org/butcher_scholar.php.

Also coming up is the deadline for NEW WOMEN MEDIA ENTREPRENEUR GRANTS
(http://www.newmediawomen.org/index.php/site/proposal_guidelines/)to fund three women-led projects to create new Web sites, mobile news services or other entrepreneurial initiatives that offer interactive opportunities to engage, inspire and improve news and information in a geographic community or a community of interest. Deadline: March 31, 2009.

Chandonnet, author of Gold Rush Grub (University of Alaska Press) will speak at a dinner sponsored by the Robert Mondavi Institute in Sacramento on January 31. She will be interviewed on National Public Radio on January 30, from 2 to 3 p.m. She reports two presses of interest to women writers: PARIS PRESS at
http://www.parispress.org/, a not-for-profit press publishing the work of
women writers that has been neglected or misrepresented by
the literary world, and CHICORY BLUE PRESS at http://www.chicorybluepress.com/, a small feminist, literary press, now focusing on the strong
voices of women over sixty.

Finally, some reminders about events and deadlines mentioned earlier. Promoting his memoir Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, Willie Hensley will be in Ketchikan on Wednesday, January 28 at the Ted Ferry Civic Center at 6:30 p.m. and at the Hangar Ballroom in Juneau on Thursday, January 29 at 7 p.m. Then it's back on Anchorage on February 6 (7 p.m., UAA Bookstore) and Thursday, February 12 (7 p.m., Anchorage Museum). For details, visit http://us.macmillan.com/Tour.aspx?id=246.

On January 31 Mr. Whitekeys will host literary readings from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Anchorage Museum - the final literary event for the Freeze Project. On Saturday, January 31 from 2-4 p.m., David Marusek is doing a book launch for Mind over Ship at Gulliver's in Fairbanks, and on Saturday, February 7, he's reading at 6 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, also in Fairbanks. And author Michael Engelhart will be the featured speaker at the Alaska Professional Communicators luncheon at the Golden Lion Best Western in Anchorage on March 5.

February 5 is the deadline for the annual writing/broadcasting/video/photo contest from Alaska Professional Communicators (formerly Alaska Press Women). And the genre for the Alaska Writer's Guild's March Bi-Monthly Contest is horror. Deadline for submission is March 5; only members may submit.

Q & A with writer, alpinist, and new MFA Director David Stevenson

David Stevenson, who confirms that he "managed the descent of Mt. Rainier without strangling himself."

UAA's new Dept. of Creative Writing and Literary Arts low-residency MFA got off to a strong start last year, and recently welcomed a new director, David Stevenson. He was kind enough to answer a few of Andromeda's questions.

What brings you to Alaska and what do you hope to bring to the low-res MFA program?

I came to Alaska to work as director of the new low-residency MFA program in creative writing at UAA. Even though I was born in the Midwest I spent twenty years in the west. Then I found myself in the Midwest again, teaching at a state university, and it was wearing me down—not just the landscape—there's actually a stark flat beauty there, but something about the character of the people—I'm generalizing, of course. It's hard to articulate but there is something like a mass sense of compromise, of having settled. Maybe it's just me and I'm projecting how I feel when I'm there onto the whole area, but it sure feels like some kind of regional collective unconscious fueled by too much lethargy and resignation. I feel at home here in Alaska in some fuzzy quasi-spiritual way. I mean how much further west on the continent can I go? I can see Russia from here, right? Or is that only from Wasilla?

The low residency MFA program here is a newly launched enterprise and I am continually amazed by how carefully conceived and designed it is. If I were drawn here initially by the landscape, I have to say I am staying because of the people. The faculty here is so impressive—working with them is humbling. I bring about twenty years experience teaching and working in university administration, a life-long passion for reading and writing, and an enduring habit of, as I tell my students, "paying attention." I know that writing can be learned, and working backwards from that assumption, I believe it can be taught. The promise I make to our students is that I'll take their work seriously.

Can you tell us a little about your writing background?

I suppose the main thing to note about my writing background is that I'm on the slow road. I believe what Diana Ross said," You Can't Hurry Love." I think of myself as a fiction writer even though I've been more successful with nonfiction, almost all of which is about mountaineering or writing about mountaineering. I've been the book review editor of The American Alpine Journal for many years, and that's been very satisfying–like all writing, it's a labor of love. I suppose I should just admit now that I find fiction writing frightening: so many ways to go wrong. That's one of the reasons I so admire Jo-Ann Mapson: there's a certain amount of fearlessness, a pushing forward against the odds that keeps those words coming. With nonfiction one has, at least, the armature of reality to hang a story on (even if it is up to the writer to locate that armature).

I just finished a long novel called Forty Crows that's set in Mexico City in the early 1970s. I can't even say for sure how long it took me to write it—a long time. I wrote a good portion of it in 2006 at the rate of a page per day. Then it took me almost two years to get the last 100 pages. I had some naive notion that the momentum of the first 400 some pages would carry the story to its conclusion, that the thing would somehow miraculously "finish itself." That didn't happen. I'm just now beginning the process of searching for a publisher.

What is the Alaska book that you wish you'd written yourself, and what is the Alaska book that you're embarrassed you haven't yet read but hope to read soon?

A couple Alaska mountaineering books have been influential, but that's not the same as wishing I had written them. In fact I'm glad I didn't write them, because each expedition experienced the loss of a friend, not to mention an inordinate amount of physical suffering. I'm talking about David Roberts' Mountain of My Fear which describes establishing the Harvard Route on Mt. Huntington (Alaska Range) and Art Davidson's Minus 148, about the first successful winter climb of Denali. I read them as a freshman in college (when I was supposed to be reading assigned texts) and both made a deep and lasting impression.

The list of Alaska books that I'm embarrassed to admit I haven't read is far too long. I hope to read Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves soon. I also plan to read books by my colleagues and friends, books like Rich Chiappone's Water of an Undetermined Depth, Nancy Lord's Beluga Days, Eva Saulitis' Leaving Resurrection, and Sherry Simpson's The Accidental Explorer.

You're pleasantly snowed into an Alaska wilderness cabin. Name your junk food, your drink, and the book (Alaskan or otherwise) you'd like to have with you.

Once I was snowed in for eight days in the St. Elias Range, pleasantly. We were in tents, of course. The weather wasn't dire, but you couldn't climb in it. This was late May, so there was lots of light and our sleeping became random, loosed from the sun, or the night sky, or even a watch. We went into a daze eating popcorn and drinking huge pots of tea with milk and sugar. Though we skied in we had a cache of supplies flown onto the glacier, including several books and in those days I read both Moby Dick and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man for the first time. So my theory is to take a book that I would otherwise keep shuffling to the bottom of the list. Remembrance of Things Past or Gravity's Rainbow—some massive tome that would require more discipline than I am normally able to muster, a book that launches its own universe into being and lets the reader live in it for a while.

Great Alaska independent bookstores -- visit one soon

I challenge you (and myself!), as the days grow longer, to make a fun road trip to an independent Alaska bookstore -- perhaps even one you haven't visited before. But first, let me explain what prompted me to make this challenge on a post-inauguration day of hope, festivity, and responsibility.

Reader and blogger Rose let me know yesterday about the sad closure of an independent Milwaukee bookstore chain called Harry W. Schwartz, where she once worked and where I did a signing in 2007. The original store had been open for 82 years. A statement attributed the closure to our recent economic downturn, a hard blow following the 2004 death of A. David Schwartz, who had taken over the chain from his father.

I loved what A. David Schwartz had to say about his profession: "Bookselling was and is for me a cultural and political expression, an expression of progressive change, of challenge to oppressive authority, of a search for a community of values which can act as an underpinning of a better world. The true profit in bookselling is the social profit; the bottom line, the measure of the impact of the bookshop on the community.

You'll see Title Wave in Anchorage, my "happy place," mentioned at 49 writers a lot. (I think it rivals many West Coast used/new combo indie bookstores.) But I've also meant to blog about Alaska's other notable indie bookstores.

In August, I did some signings at two Mat-Su Valley shops: Fireside Books in Palmer, and Pandemonium Books & Cafe in Wasilla. I'd never been inside those stores before. I hadn't even known they existed.

What a wonderful surprise to meet co-owner David Cheezem at Fireside, a small but atmospheric and well-stocked downtown shop with lots of great staff book recommendations (I bought an Orwell biography I've posted about since) and a friendly, book-loving staff. Cheezem himself is an interesting renaissance guy. He ran for political office unsuccessfully last fall, and writes daily poetry that he posts on Facebook, among other things. At Fireside, I was unable to restrain my husband from going on a book-buying binge, including both used and new titles. He bought so much they threw in a free totebag.

A few hours later, at the very modern Pandemonium Books in Wasilla, I was impressed by the incredible gourmet desserts at the gleaming cafe, plus the community room and a special dedication to educational books that would make any homeschooler feel particularly welcome. Even the bathrooms are gorgeous. Someone there has a taste for interior design, as well as literature. Who could have known that the town that gave us Sarah also has such a great and welcoming indie bookstore? Pandemonium just opened last summer, which might explain why some of us city folk have been slow to discover it.

Either of these stores are worth the drive from Anchorage, and I bet there are others. I've heard that River City Books & Cafe in Soldotna is a great place to spend a few hours, if you're down that way, fishing or camping. On my past Southeast Alaska trips, I always enjoyed checking out Parnassus Books in Ketchikan (great gifts in addition to books) and Old Harbor Books in Sitka. Last summer, I popped into teeny-tiny Girdwood Books & News and came away with some original paperbacks from the 1950s for a few bucks each. Other Alaska favorites include the Homer Bookstore, and Orca Book & Sound in Cordova. Next time I'm in Fairbanks I plan to check out Gulliver's.

Do you have a favorite Alaska bookstore or even better, a story about something special you found or experienced at an Alaska bookstore? Tell us. It's hard to imagine now, but someday soon we'll get one of those sunny, slushy days where you just want to drive, and a bookstore/cafe makes an excellent destination or refueling spot. If you're a bookseller, tell us why you do it and how the business is going.

A Measure of Hope

What a day, and it's only beginning. I wasn't prepared for the emotion, welling up early as I caught myself in tears even as events were just ramping up. I'll keep the Kleenex handy, right here by the laptop.

You can also catch me crying at the Alaska Flag Song. Corny, I know. And not very writerly. Aren't we supposed to be the quintessential loners, locked away in our turrets or basements or wherever we write? But it matters to be part of something bigger, something that for all its faults offers a measure of hope. In happy coincidence we celebrate our state becoming part of America as we celebrate America becoming more of what we were meant to be.

Hope springs eternal for writers, in a measure at least. We walk a tightrope between self-efficacy - the belief that we can accomplish what we set out to do - and overconfidence, nicely summed up in agent Nathan Bransford's post on The Perils of Overconfidence, in which he notes a harsh truth: "the people who are most unwilling to heed sound constructive criticism and the ones who most need to heed said constructive criticism are the ones who are most convinced of their own genius."

We have good company in a new President who strikes a balance between humility and confidence. A writer himself, he understands what it means to have - and to give - a measure of hope.

Extraordinary Books

Our Northern Favorites shelf (scroll down, right) is growing, thanks to contributions from all of you. Keep them coming - one per reader, for the moment, as we continue to showcase a fine and diverse selection of books.

And our readers have spoken once again, with many thanks to all who voted. Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves is the 49 writers book club selection for this quarter. I'm excited for the excuse to re-read it, and even more excited that Seth has agreed to a 49 writers interview. We'll bring that to you in a few weeks. In the meantime, read up!

Alaskan author Willie Hensley's book tour brings him back to Alaska this week, so I thought this would be a good time to post my review of his memoir, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, first printed in the December/January issue of Bookforum. We've had some nice discussion threads on book reviews and whether there's a need for local perspectives on Northern books. Kudos to the editors at Bookforum, who sought me out because they wanted an Alaskan perspective on Hensley's book. You can meet Hensley this Thursday at 7 p.m. at Title Wave in Anchorage.

Of late, referring to Alaskans as “real people” smacks of a political agenda. But the indigenous people of the North, the Iñupiat, have been “real” for thousands of years. This simple fact resounds in the straightforward voice of Alaska’s native rights advocate William L. Iggiagruk Hensley.

His memoir’s title, Fifty Miles from Tomorrow, refers to the distance between the international date line and the remote place in which he was born in 1941. Hensley’s Iñupiat mother could barely care for herself, and his Lithuanian father never acknowledged him. His first memory is of an adult on an alcoholic binge molesting his sister. Cousins rescued the children, welcoming them into an extended family of seven, give or take a few. For most of the year, they camped fifteen miles by boat from the tiny village of Kotzebue, using wooden crates for furniture and a homemade stove for warmth—living in what Hensley calls the twilight of the Stone Age. Here, he learned that nature commands respect, nothing should go to waste, cooperation trumps independence, and giving up is not an option.

Obtaining formal education proved more tenuous than eking out an existence on the tundra. Officials in schools run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs decimated Iñupiat spirit and culture by discouraging the native language and forsaking the rhythm of the land for a year structured around Pilgrims and valentines. There were no local secondary schools, so Hensley grappled with homesickness and culture shock in order to earn a high school diploma from a boarding school in Tennessee. Graduating from George Washington University in 1966, he returned to find his childhood home leveled and his mother camped in a corner of the town church. He discovered that in the legislation that had made Alaska a state just seven years earlier, there was a gaping hole where the property rights of natives should have been.

Hensley remedied the void in leadership that had let this happen, becoming one of the first of a generation of Alaska’s natives determined to stand up for the rights of their people. With what he describes as an excess of passion and a profound sense of optimism, he served two terms in the state legislature, helped found the Northwest Alaska Native Association and the Alaska Federation of Natives, and assumed leadership of the Alaska Village Electrical Cooperative—all at more or less the same time, and all while crusading on behalf of native land rights. Lacking an understanding of power politics, Hensley and his colleagues attacked their project with the same skills that had sustained their people for thousands of years: tenacity, grit, hard work, collaboration, and an unfailing sense of humor.

Oil drove the discourse. The secretary of the interior, Stewart Udall, ruled that Alaska couldn’t allocate land to build the Trans-Alaska Pipeline until claims filed by the state’s natives had been settled. Hensley made more than 120 trips to lobby Congress over five years, flying twenty-four hours each way, checking into fleabag hotels, and diving into a social scene that couldn’t have been less inviting to a young man most at home on the windswept shores of a remote river camp. Finally, in 1971, President Nixon signed the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA), granting forty-four million acres and nearly one billion dollars to Alaska’s native people.

Hensley offers scant details about how the impressive deed got done. Ever pragmatic, he glosses over a handful of political alliances, including some with leaders who have since fallen from grace. He speaks with more enthusiasm about bagging caribou with his buddies than about bagging the land deal of the century, mirroring a consensus ambivalence toward ANCSA’s system of native corporations, which thrust the complexities of capitalism onto a subsistence culture. Wandering a wintry beach nine years after the act’s passage, Hensley recognized that, although the lot of his people had improved materially, they were slipping into a cultural grave. Preserving these values has become his latest battle, driven less by ambition than by despair. “It wasn’t enough to claim our lands,” he writes. “We had to claim our ways of thinking, acting, and living.” Celebrating a way of life that was almost lost, Hensley’s memoir is a compelling tale of doing what had to be done and recognizing the spiritual depth and profound love it takes to become a real person in Alaska, or anywhere else.

Lame-duck presidential poetry, an inaugural address link, and memories of FREEZE

I don't usually blog on the weekends, but I've got some items that won't be timely in a few more days, and the 40 degree temps and flooding roads are reminding me of how quickly things change. First, I've got to share these FREEZE photos of Anchorage winter art installations, taken last weekend when it was ten below zero, just after the Park Strip exhibit started and just before we were walloped by those tropical hundred-mile winds. I assume all the ice has melted now, but it's not too late to say kudos to the artists, Julie Decker, Dawnell Smith, and everyone else who made -- and is making -- our city feel like a creative, exciting, proudly northern place to live. (The heads on poles and the blue-lit cones were all made of ice, if that isn't clear from the pictures.) The FREEZE celebrations will be continuing all month.

Second, a little lame-duck presidential poetry, and an update from a traveling author:“Fiddling poet” Ken Waldman, who divides his life between Alaska, Louisiana, and the open road, is the only writer I know who can produce an end-of-year “highlights” letter that is nearly impossible to summarize. In 2008, the peripatetic polymath and educational outreach expert released a memoir, Are You Famous? as well as a new CD, did “writer gigs” at perhaps a dozen universities and schools, attended countless book festivals, was interviewed from Philadelphia to California, read a poem about Sarah Palin on “West Coast Live,” and is now preparing for the January release of his 8th CD, Some Favorites, a compilation to accompany his memoir. Waldman could teach the rest of us about how to get coverage on radio (having some musical abilities might help) and in print.

Among the promo materials he sent me last year was a book and accompanying CD he put out in 2006: As the World Burns: The Sonnets of George W. Bush and Other Poems of the 43rd Presidency. The collection, like Waldman’s holiday letter, is hard to summarize. Some poems are critical of the administration, but the more intriguing and puzzling poems are told in the president’s own guileless drawl, such as a simple account of how much he enjoys bicycling.

Strangest of all are the unprocessed memories of George Bush's dreams -- about mice, gold, or Saddam Hussein: “In a big empty gym we were wrestling./Really, he wasn’t much competition./I’d pinned him down./No referee decision/about take-downs or escapes./There was nothing/to argue. I’d won cleanly. Carrying/the winner’s trophy, I tripped. It broke in three pieces./ He came from nowhere, grabbed one, and ran…”

And finally, I just have to mention this great New Yorker article by Jill Lepore about the history of inaugural addresses, great reading before Tuesday if you -- like me -- were poking around, looking for some history on the subject. My family and I read it aloud at the dinner table last night, whetting our appetite for Tuesday's inauguration, and allowing ourselves to imagine a future of excellent writing, inspiring speeches, and hopefully, clear thinking.

49 writers weekly roundup

What a week. Bitter cold. Raging winds. Rain, sleet, snow. Now they're talking record highs for Anchorage, with schools closed for the third straight day due to icy roads. The Joe Mcginness title is an apt fit for Alaska in January, when we always seem to get battered by extremes. At least we've got great book and writing functions to ease the pain.

The 49 writers book club selection poll (right) closes on Saturday, January 17, so remember to vote if you haven't already. And remember also that we've got open season on book nominations for our Northern Favorites shelf (also at right) until February 14. Just leave a comment or use the "contact us" link in the sidebar.

Out on book tour, Willie Hensley has missed some of Alaska's weather-related fun. He's in Washington DC today and tomorrow, then back in Anchorage on Thursday, January 22 at 7 p.m. at Title Wave Books. From there he'll be in Ketchikan on Wednesday, January 28 at the Ted Ferry Civic Center at 6:30 p.m. and at the Hangar Ballroom in Juneau on Thursday, January 29 at 7 p.m. Then it's back on Anchorage on February 6 (7 p.m., UAA Bookstore) and Thursday, February 12 (7 p.m., Anchorage Museum). For details, visit http://us.macmillan.com/Tour.aspx?id=246.

Critically acclaimed Fairbanks author David Marusek's new book, Mind over Ship, comes out on January 20. On Saturday, January 31 from 2-4 p.m., Marusek is doing a book launch at Gulliver's in Fairbanks, and on Saturday, February 7, he's reading at 6 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, also in Fairbanks.

The Alaska Writer's Guild holds their monthly meeting at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 20 at Barnes and Noble in Anchorage. Featured speaker Sherry Simpson will also be signing books from 6-7 p.m. A representative from the Rasmuson Foundation will make a short presentation on their grant program from 7-7:15 p.m. Meetings are free for members (membership is $60 per year, see their website for details. Also at the meeting, the Bi-Monthly Contest winner of Children and Teens will be announced and presented with a $50 Prize courtesy of Ken Jelinek. The genre for the Guild's March Bi-Monthly Contest is horror. Deadline for submission is March 5; only members may submit.

Remember that on January 21 at 6 p.m., the Rasmuson Foundation will host a teleconference for artists interested in learning more about the Foundation’s Individual Artist and Project Awards. Foundation staff will provide information about the grants, which are awarded directly to writers, and answer questions about eligibility, the application process, supporting materials, timeline, the selection process, and other questions brought forward by participants. The phone number is 888-896-0862.

Even with our big thaw, the Freeze Project is going strong. Remember that on January 31 Mr. Whitekeys will host literary readings from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Anchorage Museum.

Another reminder: February 5 is the deadline for the annual writing/broadcasting/video/photo contest from Alaska Professional Communicators (formerly Alaska Press Women). Entry fees are $20 per entry for members, $30 for nonmembers. For details, visit http://www.akprocom.org/commcontests.php

Speaking of the Alaska Professional Communicators, author Michael Engelhard will be the featured speaker at their luncheon at the Golden Lion Best Western in Anchorage on March 5. The topic is The Pleasures and Pains of Anthologizing. Michael will read a piece and introduce two new anthologies, and there'll be a Q & A.

Looking ahead, the Sitka Symposium is scheduled for June 25-28 in Sitka. Aiming to put both written and oral traditions to the service of ideas, this year's symposium features authors Gary Holthaus, Robin Kimmerer, and Gary Snyder.

It should be a great conference. Although by then the weather won't be nearly as interesting.

Nancy Lord, Alaska State Writer, on Brower's "Fifty Years Below Zero"

by Nancy Lord

Recently, when I was in Kaktovik (for book research), someone told me I needed to read Fifty Years Below Zero, Charles Brower’s memoir of his life in the Arctic. In Kaktovik I’d met a number of Brower descendents and had my first experience with an Arctic winter—including spotting a polar bear and following tracks on a wind-scoured beach-- so this seemed like a good idea. When I got back to Homer I sought out the 1942 classic in my library.

I do mean classic. Brower’s voice is as lively and compelling as it must have been when he sat around a woodstove and told his stories. Here he is as a New Jersey teen-ager going to sea, then heading off with friend George Leavitt to check out coal supplies in Alaska, visiting various North Slope villages and learning Inupiat ways, hunting whales from an umiak, ending up at a whaling station at Barrow. I’ve read a lot of Alaska history, but this book captures a remarkable place and time period—1883 to the 1940s—in a very personal, living way, with exquisite detail and deep understanding.

Through the course of his life, Brower was astoundingly Zelig-like in his proximity to historic Arctic events and famous people. Over the years he hosted various explorers and collectors—Stefansson, Rasmussen, Amundsen--who came through Barrow. He knew and traveled with Captain Healy on the famed revenue cutter Bear, and he spent time with Archbishop Hudson Stuck (“a thoughtful man.”) After traveling by umiak and sled to Icy Cape the summer of 1897, he accepted a lift back to Barrow on the whaler Navarch, one of the seven ships that froze that year into the ice; the “reindeer rescue” that brought food to the stranded whalers in Barrow is a well-known story, but I had not known of Brower’s role in leading to safety men from the Navarch after they were abandoned by their captain, and his subsequent role in the care of all the rescued whaling crews. Brower later watched Lindbergh fly by (but was down the coast and missed his Barrow landing), and kept the ice cleared (by shovel) for Alaska’s pioneer aviators (Wien, Eielson, Merrill). When Will Rogers and Wiley Post crashed their plane attempting to visit him, he tended to the bodies and the communication with the outside world.

But it was not celebrity or white man’s history that impressed Brower. His portraits of the Inupiaq people he learned from, worked with, and lived among are carefully drawn, lending those individuals the dignity of their own accomplished lives. He gives credit to the many ways in which their knowledge and technologies were superior to those of white men, and he also acknowledges the ways in which the collisions of cultures changed Arctic life forever. One of the most moving chapters of the books tells of the spread of disease after a festival in Barrow—when those returning to an inland village were later found dead all the way along the river home.

Here’s one of my favorite passages, from near the end of the book, when Brower had made a trip Outside: “Luxuries, soft living, so-called civilization—there’s nothing better to make me appreciate Barrow. And so, as usual, spring brought back the old lure of the Arctic and its wideopen spaces, its plain living, its deep but exciting peace in which man can think things out while he works.”

In the end, Brower’s book reminds me just how short Alaska’s history has been—how much change we’ve seen since this one man showed up in parts of the Arctic where people had not even seen a white man before.

Just a couple of months ago another Brower died. I noted this at the time because Arnold Brower Sr., the 86-year- old respected elder and whaling captain, had fallen though ice on his snowmachine on his way to his camp near Barrow. I think a lot these days about climate change brought on by the burning of so much fossil fuel in such a short period of time, and I’d wondered if Arnold, an expert in ice but perhaps not prepared for unprecedented weather changes, should be considered a victim of global warming. When I looked up his obituary, I learned that Arnold was the last surviving child of Charles Brower.

Father and son, two generations—from a time when life in the Arctic had been remarkably stable for hundreds if not thousands of years to 2008. I don’t even know what to say about 2008. We live in luxury, the “so-called civilization” of which Brower wrote. Even the people of Kaktovik and Barrow, however much they might still hold to traditional life and values, live in the luxury of warm houses and jet travel. There’s no going back, but what’s ahead for us must be the new great unknown.

Adult entertainment: not recession-proof? -- plus book reviewing and agent advice

Last year, when I was worrying aloud on this blog about "Black Wednesday" and other bad publishing news, a reader quipped that adding sex to one's books might help. After all, she said -- recalling her own experience working for a bookstore that survived the Depression by selling adult entertainment -- porn is recession-proof.

Turns out it isn't. On an NPR segment last week about the adult entertainment industry, a spokesperson claimed that naughty DVD sales were down 15%. Compare that -- favorably -- to sales slippage at Barnes & Noble (down 5.2% over the holidays) and Borders (down 11.7%). Maybe those bookstore figures aren't so bad after all.

I'll go tell my characters they can put their clothes back on.

Following Deb's last post, we had some really good comments building on the idea of creating a sort of "Alaska Critics Circle" to promote the reviewing of Alaska books. I don't have more to post about this today, but I want to keep the conversation going. What would it take you to become a book reviewer? Do we even need reviews? Comment about this anytime -- it's a conversation we need to keep having as we brainstorm the solutions and network with other litbloggers and innovators out there.

I recently received this email from an aspiring Alaska writer (his words in italics), looking for some publishing advice. I've obscured any identifying characteristics and am answering his questions here, with his permission, in order to fulfill my blogging and email duties simultaneously. Perhaps it will be of interest to others.

I have started to send out query letters to various literary agencies, and have
been summarily rejected (eight times so far – hooray me!). Since you are
essentially the only local author I can identify that has recently (and
successfully) published a novel outside of the Alaskana section of our local
gift shops, I was curious whether I could pick your brain for advice.

Yes, hooray you indeed. Eight agent rejections are not a sure sign that you won't succeed. It can be just as hard to get an agent as it is to get a publishing contract. Keep going.

By the way, I'm not the only Alaska novelist writing non-Alaskana. David Marusek of Fairbanks and Stuart Cohen of Juneau are two other novelists who come to mind -- I'll be interviewing them soon, I promise -- and there are others as well.

#1 Could I send you a copy of my query letter?
#2 Could I send you the first chapter of my novel?

Er, sorry. No. First, I'm not an agent or marketing expert. Second, I have a backlog of other Alaska writers' work (published and unpublished) that has been sent to me, which I haven't read yet. Third, I have my own work to do or the lights and heat go out around March 1. If the lights go out and stay out a while, perhaps I'll offer a class on queries/proposals, as I've done in the past to pay the bills, and we can work together then.

Essentially, I believe I am working against a few things here.
#1 It is set in Alaska. Yes, I know it is a cliché to write about your
hometown. Yes, I know you purposefully avoided it.

No, this doesn't work against you at all, and I don't believe it's a cliche to write what you know. In fact, it's often the best idea. I didn't avoid writing about Alaska on purpose, I followed the story that grabbed me and wouldn't let go. We're not facing an overabundance of Alaska narratives -- in fact, there is much more to say and describe. Follow your passion and write from your experience OR your interest, I say.

#2) It is 150,000 words, which doesn’t seem that long to me, but is perhaps beyond the upper limit of what first time authors are allowed.

Well, 70,000 words might be closer to the norm, but don't tell J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer that. My own first novel was 180,000 words. The effectiveness of the story matters more than the length, I'd think. An agent might tell you differently.

#3) It is a horror novel. No way of getting around it. (The author of the letter goes on to explain his difficulty fitting into conventional genre distinctions.)

This is a bad thing? (See Stephenie Meyer comment above.) I'm not a horror reader, but I live with several horror readers. A popular -- and more literary -- series in my house is the Nightwatch series by Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko. (Great movie, by the way.) It seems to me we're living in genre-busting times, with conventional notions of horror, fantasy, literary fiction all mixing, while the boundaries between youth and adult fiction also fall away. I wouldn't worry yet about where you fit in the bookstore. I'd just write the book that is in your heart and let agents and editors decide how to sell it. Trying to fit a mold or anticipate the trends is a recipe for mediocrity more than success.

That's the end of the writer's letter, but let me point him -- and anyone else -- toward several posts where I discussed in detail how to get an agent, with tips on books and websites of interest and how to use conferences to your advantage. (Note that they appear in reverse post order.) I've also added a link to this series of posts on the righthand side of the blog, in a list of helpful past posts (including author interviews).

Reviewisaurus Rex

Are book reviews going the way of the dinosaur? I'm not talking about the blurb plus excerpts found in the Anchorage Daily News or the friend-enemy-relative customer reviews on Amazon. I'm talking about (dare I say it?) the old-fashioned kind, where an accomplished writer presents a thoughtful analysis that helps you decide whether the book is one you'd like to read.

Some writers hate reviews and refuse to read them. Others embrace them, even though critical reviews are rarely all about praise. I'm among the latter. But the conflicting views of writers have been around for ages, and (if you ask them) no one listens to them anyhow, so that doesn't explain the demise of the review.

The proliferation of ways for Jane Reader to get her opinions before the public surely has something to do with it. Blogs, book shopping web sites, online reading sites like Shelfari and GoodReads - there and elsewhere on the web, everyone gets a shot at being a reviewer. It's a natural result not just of web 2.0 technology but also the reader response theory I embraced as a teacher: readers bring their own experiences to books, and what resonates for one may not resonate for others. Taken to the extreme, it could perhaps be argued there's no such this as a good book - or a bad one.

Another issue for reviewers is the proliferation of self-pubbed books. With so many books to choose from, you'd think we'd need reviews more than ever. But the effect has been the opposite. I've been told the ADN's decision to do excerpts instead of reviews was made in part because they didn't want to have to pick and choose among Alaskan authors, many of whom had laid out not just sweat and tears but also cold hard cash to see their books in print. Big reviewers like Publisher's Weekly and Booklist don't have a problem with picking and choosing what they'll review. But maybe it's tougher up here, where often the author is, if not a friend, then the friend of a friend.

So, does anyone miss reviews? Specifically, would you like to read book reviews here at 49 writers? Authors send us their books, and we like books, but we're not sure what to do with them. I've been fortunate to review for the Washington Post Book World and also Bookforum. I enjoy the intellectual challenge of distilling a book to its essence and crafting an analysis in 600 words or less. But writing reviews takes time. Lots of it.

Talk to us. If you'd like reviews here, reviews that offer a uniquely Northern perspective on Northern books, we'll see if we can assemble a cadre of reviewers to tackle the books authors send us. But if it's time for reviews to go the way of the dinosaur, who are we to stand in the way?

Book Club and Northern Favorites

Our readers have spoken. Actually, it was only a fraction of our readership, but we appreciate the input. The 49 writers book club will continue as it began, discussing one book per quarter, over the span of a weekend.

Now to choose the book. Five great Alaskan titles were nominated. If we promise this will be the last for awhile, will you humor us with another poll? To the right, please take a second or two to tell us which book you'd like to read this quarter. No obligation. No commitment. Isn't it great to be online? You can vote on a book but decide not to read it. You can read and participate without voting on the book. Or any other creative combinations of participating or not.

I've made a new shelf in the sidebar for our book club selections. Moving your cursor over each book, you can read a summary and reader reviews. The links will take you to Amazon to order if you like. Or visit the great folks at Title Wave in Anchorage - most likely they have these titles in stock. The poll closes in a week, and we're looking at March 7 and 8 as the book club discussion days.

At the risk of sounding like one of those "but wait!" commercials, we've got another great deal for you. Scanning the sidebar, you'll notice only one lonely book sits on the Northern Favorites shelf. Mine. Not just my selection, but a book I wrote. Can you believe this shameless self-promotion?

That's our intent. We want the Northern Favorites shelf to overflow with books placed by our readers. Books they love. Books they recommend. Yes, even books they've written themselves.

From now till February 14, it's open season at Northern Favorites. All you have to do is leave a comment on any post, and you get to put one book on the shelf - any title you want, as long as it's either by a Northern writer or at least partially set in the North. If you've already commented, that counts too.

If we were Bill Allen and you were lawmakers, this might be considered a bribe. We prefer to call it positive reinforcement, sort of like what I use to get my boxer puppy to sit and stay. We're encouraging comments because they infuse this blog with a real sense of community. So post and recommend a book for the shelf. You can either embed the title in your post, as in "Loved your post, Cinthia, and please add XOXOX to the Northern Favorites shelf," or you can use the contact form (in the sidebar to the right) to send a message, as in "I've left a comment at 49 writers; please add XOXOX to the Northern Favorites shelf." We'll update the shelf whenever we get around to it or on Fridays - whichever comes first.

To leave a comment, click the pencil icon at the bottom of any post. If you don't have a Google account, pick the Open ID option. Type your comment, type the CAPTCHA (the Completely Automated Public Turing Test to Tell Computers and Humans Apart, i.e. those crazy letters in the box), and choose whether you'd like an email if someone comments on your comment. Don't navigate away from the page till you see a message that your comment has been posted.

Cinthia on Saturdays: Diary of a Novelist

Another new feature here at 49 writers -- we introduce a tired, late-night-writing Cinthia Ritchie (pictured in our guest bloggers' picture column to the lower right) who will be chronicling her novel-writing adventures on alternating Saturdays.

by Cinthia Ritchie

I can’t stop cleaning.

I’m not sure how this is possible since the house is such a mess. Nevertheless I am on a cleaning binge, wiping counters and scooping crumbs, vacuuming floors and getting down on my hands and knees to spot clean the doggie prints from the white rug.

I am so happy as I clean. I hum. I sing. I dance across the kitchen floor with the dishrag swinging merrily over my head.

I’m happy because I’m not writing. Because the more I clean, the less time I have to write.

I’m stuck in my last novel chapter, you see, and I have no idea how to get out.

So I scrub the bathtub, wash the couch pillows, lovingly wipe the dust from my palm plant. There is so much to do! It could take me days, weeks. Months.

I could, hypothetically, swipe counters and wash laundry forever, though in my heart of hearts I want nothing more than to finish my book, print it out and send it off (send it off!) to the holy hands of New York editors, who wait for this accession with folded hands and designer shoes.

Yet this procrastination pleases me greatly, not the fact that I’m not writing, which I anguish over every second of every day, but the childish sense of satisfaction I get by avoiding my book. I often impress myself with the clever lengths I take to justify this not writing.

“The refrigerator smells,” I’ll say to myself as I begin unloading food across the counters. “I really need a haircut,” I’ll say as I get in the car to drive to the beauty salon and veer into Carr’s to load up on sugar-laced muffins. “J.C.Penney is having a huge sale,” and off I’ll go to the Fifth Avenue Mall, even though I hate to shop and will spend most of my time trying on shoes and worrying about my inability to walk in heels.

It’s almost as if two halves of myself are battling it out: Write. No, clean. Write, no, take a nap. Write, no, watch a movie.

I want to write because I love writing, because it’s always been my dream to publish a book, because I truly believe that somewhere lives a woman who needs to connect with me through my words, who needs the comfort of my characters, much the way I’ve been comforted through the words and characters of the authors I’ve loved best.

I don’t want to write because writing is hard, because it forces me to examine parts of myself I’d rather leave untouched, because it involves so much failure and sacrifice and time, and really, one can only take so much.

So I write. And then I clean. And write some more. And clean some more. It’s like yin and yang, like Hegel’s thesis /antithesis theory: The pendulum swings one way, and then it swings another.

I write, and then I don’t. Then I do, and then I don’t.

If the don’t are longer than the dos, well, no matter; according to Hegel, that will soon even out.

Perhaps he is right because finally I sit down at my desk. My hands fumble over the keyboard, my eyes close and really, it is like sex in a way, the waiting, the sense of anticipation, and how you have to center yourself sometimes (at least if you’re a woman; at least if you’re not in the mood), how you must concentrate and block everything out. How it can be hard work. How it can make you sweat.

Then it happens, I am writing, my words flowing and it’s good, yes, it’s hot and sweaty and good, and even as I lean excitedly forward, my hair scattering over the keyboard and tangling in my fingers, even as I am in the scene, writing strong and pure and right. Even then my fickle mind teases me with images of the car.

“Honey,” it says, “Wouldn’t you rather be outside cleaning the mess from the backseat?”

The truth?

I would. And I wouldn’t.


Cinthia Ritchie is a former Anchorage Daily News feature writer and columnist who writes for Alaska Newspapers. She’s the recipient of a Rasumon Foundation Individual Artist Award, the Alaska Council on the Arts Connie Boochever Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize nomination plus residencies at Hedgebrook and Hidden River Arts. Her fiction, essays and poetry can be found in over 30 literary magazines.

49 Writers weekly roundup

Looking at all the opportunities coming up for Alaskan authors and their readers, I get a sense of how the Klondikers must have felt back in '98. Except no one has to pack a ton of supplies over a mountain or worry about getting there too late, unless of course you miss a deadline. Be sure to scroll all the way to the bottom so you don't miss a thing. I also update the calendar (at the very bottom of the page, after all the posts) on Fridays.

On Monday, January 12, we'll begin the process of choosing the first 49 Writers book club selection of 2009. So far we've had suggestions of Ordinary Wolves, Firecracker Boys, And She Was, and Being Caribou . We're looking for books either set in the North or written by Northern writers. If you have any other nominations, please comment here or on last Tuesday's book club post or use the contact form to the right. Our poll on book club logistics (top right) closes January 10.

The Freeze project is now accepting writing submissions at their web site. They're inviting all Alaskan writers to participate, no matter the genre, length or curriculum vitae. One of the goals of this project is to identify and select work for publication in a FREEZE book, so they ask that you submit work that suits the concept and include contact information and details about the writing. The writing Freeze also includes work by authors chosen to represent the project, so visit the site all month to read the latest postings and learn about upcoming events. They'll post the first submissions on January 10, opening day for Freeze, and continue updating the page as the month unfolds. Find out more at www.freezeproject.org.

The Freeze project also features several readings this month, including a kick-off outdoor event this Saturday, January 10, at 1 p.m. on the Delaney Park Strip in Anchorage with poet Joan Kane, essayist Sherry Simpson and several other hardcore writers. No word on what it takes to make the hardcore writer cut, but it may have something to do with reading your work outside in January. At any rate, Freeze asks that you come out and thaw the Freeze with your body heat.

The full schedule of Freeze readings include:

January 10: A Northern Writers' reading and open mic at 1 p.m. as part of the Freeze opening on the Delaney Park Strip between E and I streets.

January 16: A casual, but stylish Northern Writers' event with an open mic from 7 to 9 p.m. at Bernie's Bungalow, 7th Ave & D Street.

January 31: Readings hosted by Mr. White Keys from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Anchorage Museum. (Rumor has it Willie Hensley may be a featured reader at this one).

Check the Freeze website for a list of readers at these events or contact Dawnell Smith at dawnell@freezeproject.org to participate. They hope to include an open mic at all readings, and they say it's okay just to show up with something to read.

On Tuesday, January 16, Alaska Sisters in Crime meets from 6:30-8:00 p.m., at the Elim Cafe (corner of Dimond Blvd. and Arctic Blvd.) in Anchorage. They're invited an agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) from 7-7:30 and a federal ranger from 7:30-8 to speak. You can also bring books to swap.

Anchorage nature writer and author Bill Sherwonit will teach a 12-week nature writing class beginning January 15 in Anchorage. Participants in this workshop-style class will explore and refine their own writing styles, with an emphasis on the personal essay form. The class will also read and discuss works by some of America’s finest nature writers, past and present. The cost is $200. To sign up for this Thursday night class (7 to 9:30 p.m.), or for more information, contact Sherwonit at 245-0283 or akgriz@hotmail.com. Further information about the teacher is also available at www.billsherwonit.alaskawriters.com.

The next application period for UAA's graduate writing program is NOW. If you are a poet, a fiction or nonfiction writer, and you've been considering a low-residency MFA program to help light some creative sparks within your writing life, please know that UAA's early application deadline is January 15, 2009. You will find all the application instructions by visiting the UAA web site http://cwla.uaa.alaska.edu and clicking on the application information button found on the home page.

In the more distant future, UAA announces that its next residency, which includes many public, evening readings and craft talks, will be July 11-23, 2009 featuring John Keeble as the keynote visiting writer. And don't forget that at UAA's web site, you can go to the index called Quicklinks to find high-quality podcasts from craft talks and readings given by faculty and guest speakers in the summer of 2008. They begin on or about page three, once you scroll through the Podcasts section, with Rich Chiappone's talk, "Reading Like a Writer."

On January 21 at 6 p.m., the Rasmuson Foundation will host a teleconference for artists interested in learning more about the Foundation’s Individual Artist Awards. Foundation staff will provide information about the grants, which are awarded directly to writers, and answer questions about eligibility, the application process, supporting materials, timeline, the selection process, and other questions brought forward by participants.

“Getting through the application process requires artists to communicate their creative goals and vision on paper,” said Victoria Lord, program associate. “We realize this can sometimes be challenging, and our hope is that these teleconferences provide applicants with the tools and insight to help them put forward competitive applications.”

All writers are invited to call in regardless of whether they have submitted an application or received funding for an Individual Artist Award in the past. The number: 1-888-896-0862. Guidelines, application materials and lists of past recipients are available at www.rasmuson.org.

February 5 is the deadline for the annual writing/broadcasting/video/photo contest from Alaska Professional Communicators (formerly Alaska Press Women). Winners in 78 categories, including fiction and non-fictions, go on to the National Federation of Press Women finals. The contest is now open to Alaskans other than APC members. Entry fees are $20 per entry for members, $30 for nonmembers. In keeping with NFPW regulations, nonmembers who win first place in the Alaska contest must join APC if they want their entries to be sent forward to the national competition. For details, visit http://www.akprocom.org/commcontests.php

Whew. If that doesn't give you enought to do during the next few weeks of dark and cold, I don't know what will. If you have items you'd like posted in the Weekly Roundup and/or on our calendar, please email us using the contact form in the sidebar to the right.

Alaska, Then and Now: Interview with Sonya Senkowsky

Andromeda: In a young state, every bit of recorded history is particularly valuable. I love puzzling over the paired photos in Alaska Then and Now: Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks by Sonya Senkowsky and Amanda Coyne, seeing how places have changed or stayed the same. It's a great gift book or reference shelf addition for the 50th statehood year we've just started celebrating.

Sonya, tell us one surprising or fascinating historical fact you didn’t realize before you wrote the book.

Sonya Senkowsky: A big surprise for me was just how much and how quickly the Juneau waterfront has moved. Juneau is distinctive both for how much seems the same--many historic buildings have been preserved--and for how drastically the city has actually changed. Much of the city is built on fill from the rock dump. That makes many then photos from the former waterfront very difficult to place in today's Juneau. For example, if you look at the Front Street pair of photos (pp. 68-69), you would have been a block or less from waterfront in the 1900s; today if you were headed out to your boat from that point, I think you could get a healthy 15-20-minute walk in.

This was a bit challenging for me when I selected "then" photos. One idyllic "then" photo I'd selected would've place the "now" in a landlocked parking lot! (We didn't use it.)

Andromeda: Writing long captions was just one of your jobs creating this book. You also had to manage the project in other ways, like researching the historical photos and helping a photographer create the “now” photos. Tell us something about this process. Did you have to travel?

Sonya Senkowsky: The research was the heart of the work--and that included selecting the photos, researching where they were taken, and then getting enough information to re-create the original photo. The "now" images were shot by a photographer who regularly shoots for "Then & Now" books in this series all over the world. So, he didn't know Alaska, but he was familiar with the nuances involved in taking these kinds of pictures.

It was up to us to give him adequate information to take the right pictures from the right direction. I spent marathon sessions with my husband's help marking up maps and writing instructions. (His skill navigating Google Earth was just invaluable for this step.) But yes, we did travel during our research, also. Specifically for the book, I did make one trip to Juneau, and my co-author, Amanda, made a trip to Fairbanks. Of course, we'd been to these cities before, but the personal trip was necessary to get a look at the "now" scenes and place them for the book.

Some photos lined up beautifully. In other cases, there was precious little to go on, and we had to settle for not exactly replicating the original scene. Then there's a third category: Buildings that moved! One thing I learned was that Alaska's buildings have a tendency to, um, not stay put. In Anchorage, at least two of the buildings we wrote up had been moved: one, the Wendler building, was moved down the street to save it during downtown development in the 1980s. The photo pair looks great, but though it's clearly the same building, they were not taken at the same location. Another building that moved was the Pioneer School House. And it didn't just move; it was practically spun around--and then, of course, remodeled. And don't get me started again on that Juneau waterfront...

Andromeda: If you could time-travel 100 years into the future and find yourself standing in front of a particular viewpoint in Alaska (one that might develop in some unexpected way) where would you go?

Sonya Senkowsky: For me, the big lesson of the book was this: Whatever I guess about the future, it could change in an instant. So much can happen in 100 years. That's a big part of the story of Alaska.

Today's three largest cities in Alaska owe their status now to a series of twists of fate. At a certain point in Alaska history, my "Alaska Then" counterpart might have chosen Douglas and Knik as Alaska's "obvious" future urban centers. But factors like the gold rush, the building of the Alaska Railroad, and a devastating fire in Douglas helped change that. So, keeping in mind that I could never entirely guess at what 100 years of the Internet, satellite technology and future advances, development, disasters and world events might bring, here are two possible answers:

1) Of course, the whole climate change scenario brings to mind taking a peek at the top of the world. So, to check on what happened there, I might ask to see the farthest north commercial port in the state. If that lands me, say, at Barrow, and the ships in dock don't look like icebreakers, then I'd suspect things had changed considerably!

2) On a more personal level, I'd probably do what any of us would instinctively do and revisit the site of my home. I live on the eastern edge of the city, as far as you can go before hitting Army land, which means that I live next door to forestlands. I'm personally curious about boundaries (I used to write a column about this called Home on the Edge) because I think that observing what happens at a city's boundaries can tell you volumes about growth and change in how people there live.

Boundaries are vital, changing places. In a place that is still growing as much as Alaska, if you revisit a boundary site in 100 years, you're just about certain to see change. In 100 years, I might find my home and neighborhood not only much changed, but possibly even gone. There could be a highway where my house is (this was once in the city's 20-year plan). There might be nothing. Either way, it would speak volumes about Anchorage and what had happened in Alaska in that 100 years.

Andromeda: Anything else you'd like to share?

Sonya Senkowsky: Just that it has been a pleasure to see people enjoying this book. I understand now that there is a real hunger for Alaska history, and this format is a really engaging and evocative way to learn and understand it. Since the book came out, I've learned of others who've done similar "re-photography" projects on a smaller scale, or who just find the idea stimulating. I would encourage anyone who has a then and now pair to document what is pictured and share it with the world--or at least with our state! One picture may be a thousand words, but a pair of pictures like these provides bookends for a full narrative, and the stories are worth telling.

Sonya Senkowsky co-authored Alaska Then and Now: Anchorage, Juneau & Fairbanks, with Amanda Coyne. She is also the founder of a website, "Alaska Writers".

Resolutions research and why you should apply for a writing grant

Ever heard that the vast majority of people don't keep their New Year's resolutions? Well I've heard it, too -- and it's a pet peeve of mine, because I am a believer in goals and purposeful change. (And I grumble at vague "truisms" and shoddy reporting.)

Let's look at the real stats, as gleaned from recent NPR and Wall Street Journal interviews with John Norcross, an oft-quoted expert on change and Professor of Psychology at the University of Scranton. According to the WSJ article: "In three clinical studies he conducted over the past 25 years, Mr. Norcross found that 40% to 46% of those who make resolutions will be successful after six months." (By "successful," Norcross doesn't mean someone who doesn't make a slip. Nearly everyone -- specifically, over 71 percent of people -- do. But successful people persevere and find strengthened resolve, despite the first slip.)

Norcross clarified on NPR that he has found that New Year's resolvers are ten times more likely to succeed than individuals who may want change but don't set clear, announced goals. The wishy-washy types (this includes my own dear husband) who prefer not to make firm resolutions but who still desire change succeed 0 to 4% of the time, according to Norcross.

Yes, you may fail if you make a plan. But you are ten times more likely to succeed than someone who desires change but never elucidates a resolution clearly, whether on New Year's Eve or any other day of the year.

The same goes for applying for writer's grants, like the very generous Rasmuson Foundation awards available to Alaska writers and artists (deadline: March 1). Yes, it can seem like a crap shoot, and being rejected for a grant should not be construed as any dismissal of your talents -- not by any means. But your chances of getting grant money are vastly greater (logically) if you apply than if you don't.

Furthermore, grant applications come with an often overlooked bonus. Polish your writing sample, determine how you might spend that $5000 project award (for example), make a detailed timeline for your project and -- here is the best part -- with or without landing the actual grant, you're halfway to your destination. A grant application helps you focus, commit, schedule, visualize, and get better at meeting deadlines. Those are the same skills you need to get published or sell more books.

Come out of the closet, so to speak. Decide this is the year you will finish the memoir, revise the novel, or send out the book proposal, with or without the grant.

A few more grant tips for Alaskans in particular, specific to the Rasmuson Foundation awards, based on my own experience getting a grant in fall 2004, which I used to finish writing THE SPANISH BOW and to attend a fiction writing workshop in Denver:

- Yes, you can request money to "buy time," the writer's most critical commodity.

- If you applied in the past, you certainly should apply again. The competition may be different this time around, the judges may have changed, or perhaps your most recent writing sample polish will give you an edge this time.

- If you don't get the grant, don't despair. I applied for another Rasmuson grant, in a different year, but that doesn't mean my project was invalid or unmarketable.

- It's not just about the money. For me, the psychological boost and communal validation of getting a Rasmuson award was the most important part of the prize. It made me feel accepted and hopeful. I was able to write more as a result. Consider this if you're thinking of applying for a different grant that doesn't pay out very much, or entering a writing contest that rewards you in some honorary fashion. It's still worth it to get that pat on the back.

- Don't be shy about asking questions. I've heard from other applicants that the nice people at Rasmuson are more than willing to take phone calls if there is something about the application process that puzzles you.

And how about the envy that arises when someone else gets a grant or an opportunity that you wanted? (We've all been there. It's the oldest emotion around.) Consider it a healthy indicator of your desire. When the envy really burns, it tells you that you're on the right track. You've been given a glimpse of the person you want to be, or the life that you want, and it's up to you -- not anyone else -- whether or not you achieve your heart's desire. Lose the bitterness, but keep the fire.