Your Turn: Great Alaskan Gifting

Cyber shopping is tough. Last night I spent two hours spinning from website to website, pouring through reviews, weighing options and prices, adding and deleting items from carts at various vendor sites. Result: I've bought nothing yet. But today is Cyber Monday, the web's response to Black Friday, and I've got almost sixteen hours left.

Books make great gifts. What Alaskan titles are you giving, or thinking of giving, this year?

49 Writers Weekly Round-Up

Back in business after a 48-hour internet/cable outage, with a reminder that we're now opening slots for our 2010 featured authors. We'd like one featured author each month, responsible for four posts per month. You can write about anything that would be of interest to our readers. We also run an author photo plus a book photo in our sidebar for the month, plus we keep a list of featured authors with links to their posts for the year. If you'd like t be considered for one of our 2010 featured author slots, email debv@gci.net by December 15, 2009.

Alaska All-Star librarian Charlotte Glover from Ketchikan reports that they attracted a nice crowd of 54 or so for Brad Matsen's discussion of his new book Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King. Matsen now plans to ride the ferry south with Ray Troll, who is heading to Seattle to set up a six month long exhibit at the Burke Museum called "Cruisin' The Fossil Freeway," a nationally-touring exhibit that will take visitors on a "road trip" through the American West to learn about the Northwest region’s intriguing fossils and the stories they tell about the past, based on the book by the celebrated duo Ray Troll and Kirk Johnson.

Glover also notes that they are getting lots of positive comments about romance writer Stef Ann Holm's new book All That You Are which is set in Ketchikan and, according to Glover, "reads like a love letter to our town . . . How can you not like a book in which many scenes take place at Burger Queen, our local fav?" Holm made two trips to Ketchikan, one on a cruise ship and another four days on her own, to get the "local color" just right. Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say:

"Fans who have followed the escapades of the older Moretti brothers in All The Right Angles and All That Matters will enjoy meeting wild-child Mark, age 40 and facing a midlife crisis. While spending the summer in Ketchikan, Alaska, he's thrown out of the Blue Note bar and into love with its beautiful proprietor, Danalee Jackson, a part-black, part-Chinese 28-year-old with a murky history, a young son and a policy against dating customers. When the Blue Note is cited for building violations, financially strapped Dana accepts Mark's offer of help, and their relationship unfolds through verbal jabs that turn gradually into conversations. Tin-ear dialect and Mark's alpha-male aggression will turn some readers off, but Holm's affection for her characters and the beautiful setting lend a hint of savor to this sweet soufflé." (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Glover also notes that Alaskan writer Debby Dahl Edwardson has hit the ball out of the park with her new YA title Blessing's Bead:

“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.” —Starred, Booklist

"Nutaaq stands on the northwestern shore of Alaska, watching her sister sail away to a new life in Siberia with her husband. The pain of separation, the importance of family, and the power of a name are all mirrored 70 years later in Nutaaq's great-granddaughter Blessing, whose Eskimo name is also Nutaaq. Author Debby Dahl Edwardson weaves two powerful, parallel stories that vividly portray life in the North Slope village of Barrow, Alaska, America's northernmost settlement. Drawing on the historical events that have shaped the Inupiaq, the real people, Edwardson deftly fills the void in contemporary, realistic fiction about the Native people of Alaska. This story is one of hope, faithfulness, and love. Life in the village is a special, unique, precious thing, and reading Blessing's Bead made me feel immensely, fiercely proud of these people and the hardships they have faced, rising again and again to protect the things that are most sacred to them: family, culture, and a life well lived on the land." – Sara Saxton, Tuzzy Library

“Edwardson treads an elegant line in her perspective: Blessing is both an insider—Iñupiaq—and an outsider still learning exactly what that means. It’s a perspective that allows any reader in, and they’ll learn much about the power of stories and names and how to use them both.” —Kirkus Reviews

Alaskan author Basil Sands is holding a contest to name his new web radio talk show, which airs beginning the first week of December. Sands has been doing fill-in work for local radio talk for a while and says this show will be a branching out into a regular gig with an international audience. He says to expect a current events/politics/comedy show (think Dennis Miller & Jon Stewart get blended on a DNA level and sent to Alaska) and with a regular book segment where he will highlight an author/audiobook performer/publisher. He'll be looking for authors or other book related professionals to submit to a fifteen minute interview (live or pre-recorded). In addition to literary types, he's looking for quirky and entertaining Alaskans in general for segments of the show. He says it's a pretty light-hearted, fast-moving show, so boring folks need not apply.

Submit title suggestions at www.basilsands.com; the winner gets $25 US via paypal.

Author Bill Sherwonit (also our December featured author at 49 Writers) will be the featured speaker at the Dec. 3 luncheon/meeting of the Alaska Professional Communicators. His talk: “Exploring and Celebrating Wild Nature, from Alaska’s Urban Center to its Remote Backcountry Wilderness.” The luncheon will begin at 11:30 a.m. in the AHFC building at the corner of Tudor and Boniface. For more information or to make reservations, email akpc@gci.net or call 274-4723.

Postcard from Italy: About all that food...

Dear 49W Friends,
I've been back from Italy for well over a month, so this second postcard is pretty late in arriving. But I thought it might have a Thanksgiving feel. Hopefully these photos will add to your appetite over the next two days.

One of my aims in conducting in-country research for my novel-in-progress, The Discus Thrower, was to guide myself away from cliches. I didn't want to write, out of ignorance, about a country where people say things like "Mamma Mia" and eat pasta and drink wine all the time.

Well, funny thing about that. I did keep hearing people say things like Mamma Mia, even before we landed in Rome. And we did see -- and eat, and even learn to make (see photo above) -- homemade pasta (and gnocchi, and risotto) everywhere we we went. So maybe the cliches are true.


The main focus of my research was art, especially classical art. But each day we spent many hours obtaining, cooking, and eating great food. Of course, food can LOOK like art. That photo above, utilizing figs and a fig leaf picked from just outside our Tuscany apartment door, reminds me of a Caravaggio still-life.

Sometimes, it felt like the whole day was structured around the morning trip to the market (whether in Rome, or down a steep hill from our apartment in Tuscany, or in the Piedmont city of Asti). To get supplies for a day or two, we'd hit about six or seven different vendors, and be forced to practice our minimal Italian. In Rome, my 11-year-old daughter wanted to be set free in the Campo Fiori market square to fend for herself. She came back proud and mentally tired, having used just enough Italian to procure just a few too many strawberries at a fairly steep price. Good enough. (Now she could sympathize with the pains Brian and I took to plea for a small wedge of cheese or string of sausages. Everything cost so much that we didn't want to make any mistakes!)

Then we'd come home, which usually meant a long walk wherever we were based, usually some kind of apartment we'd rented (often for less than a hotel) via the internet. We'd cook lunch, recuperate, and just a little while later we'd be planning dinner. Restaurant meals were a rare splurge, but to be honest, it was our home meals, built from a foundation of great ingredients (the cheeses! the fresh herbs!) that really set the tone for our trip.

Italy is the land of tiny, cute cars, and the little produce trucks are cutest of all. Just don't get in the way of one.


If Italy taught us anything, it was to slow down and savor the small differences -- in just-picked rosemary, or garlic that has a bit more bite than we're used to, or olive oil and eggplants that seem more flavorful than what we get on this side of the world. Wow, that reads like a cliche. But Italian cliches are sometimes true.

Happy Thanksgiving!

In Defense of Self-Promotion, Part 4: A guest post by Ken Waldman

Anyone who knows me—-and I assume there are a few of you in that category reading 49 Writers—-also knows that for most of the past decade I've been an absentee Alaska resident.

When I started freelancing out of Juneau in 1995, I rarely worked in town, which meant that for virtually every job I'd board a plane to Anchorage and beyond (Nome, Bethel, and Fairbanks were the usual destinations then), or Seattle and south—-though, to be fair, I did pick up a few ferry-friendly gigs in Hoonah, Petersburg, and Haines. Striving to work more in-state, I moved to Anchorage in 1998, specifically to be more centrally located. It helped, but not enough. More opportunities kept appearing down south, and it made sense to extend my trips to take advantage. At the same time, though I received support from some individuals and organizations in state, that support just wasn't enough. As I look back, maybe I could have broadened my job searches (after all, who was I kidding, calling myself Alaska's Fiddling Poet)—-though, I recall I did broaden my searches. At some point or other I've contacted virtually every arts organization, university campus, school district, and library in the state--some of them many, many times. The path that opened was not the one I'd have suspected, but many of us have lives like that. What's unusual, it seems, is that my path has led me to publishers in out-of-the-way places, and allowed me to travel widely as a writer (who doubles as a fiddler).

In 2001, I realized I couldn't afford to continue touring out of Anchorage. Every trip out of state meant a plane ride and rental car. Because of the nature of these tours—-in addition to the higher-paying jobs, I'd also necessarily book low-paying, but high-prestige, showcase club dates as well as non-paying bookstore visits—-in order to continue this work, I had to adapt. So, in June of that year, I put in storage most of what I couldn't get rid of, loaded my car, and aimed for gigs I'd arranged in Colorado and Indiana. I gave myself two years to become more established, or quit.

More than eight years later, I'm still at it. Though I now have the books, the CDs, the reviews, and the clips, I'm reminded time and again that I'm not truly “established.” Otherwise, I'm convinced, this would be easier.

Just like I'm in that gray area—-Alaska resident who's rarely in state—-I'm an artist that many people don't know how to classify. Hence, the need to self-promote, or, to use a friendlier term, “educate.” Really, I'm not so much self-promoting as educating people about what I actually do. That's one of my dilemmas: while people may have heard about me, it's likely they've never actually read any of my books (or a single one of my poems), listened to any of my CDs, or attended any of my events. And even if they have, it's unlikely they've kept up: the past four years, since late 2005, I've had six new books and six new CDs. Somewhere in these four posts I've mentioned needing to persist. That's what artists have to do.

So, a few final observations:

Andromeda put out a call about “the eternal MFA question.” I'm a graduate of the program in Fairbanks, and while it's one of the older programs in the country, its size has varied over the years. I attended from 1985 to 1988, in the midst of one of the “small” periods. As a result, workshops combined poets, fiction writers, and nonfiction writers. Though I arrived, and graduated, as a fiction writer, I also started writing poems there. And while my experiences in the program were, how to say it, “uneven,” Fairbanks remains my absolute favorite spot in Alaska, virtually my favorite spot on the planet. Classmates included poet Jerah Chadwick, who went on to become writer laureate of Alaska; Natalie Kusz, who was writing Road Song during the program; and Alys Culhane, the fine nonfiction writer currently living in Palmer. In 1986, an undergraduate, Seth Kantner, was in a writing workshop. The next year, Lisa Chavez, currently a professor at the University of New Mexico, now a poet with two collections, was in a workshop.

My first year, we had three exceptional visiting assistant professors: Peggy Shumaker (who taught the single best class that to this day I've ever taken anywhere and who three years later returned to teach), Chris Balk (who led a wonderfully thoughtful class in Creative Nonfiction), and Wendy Bishop (who offered the best piece of advice I've ever received about workshops, which I'll paraphrase here: while you could safely ignore most responses, occasionally someone said something that rang true, which immediately led to edits you'd have likely made six weeks, or six months, down the way, if you were still working on the piece; and it's that feedback, which speeds the revision process, which is the greatest value of the workshop).

My second year, John Morgan returned from sabbatical, and Frank Soos arrived on campus: both served on my thesis committee and helped me make the most of my MFA experience. I also surely appreciated the opportunity to teach developmental and freshman composition classes throughout my time in the program, which I supplemented by teaching workshops and additional developmental writing classes at Fairbanks Correctional Center. My classmates and I also became part of the community of writers around town, many of whom, like Cindy Hardy and Pete Pinney, had graduated from the MFA program themselves. While the visiting writer series hadn't evolved to where it would be, I took advantage of the summer conference, and got to hear such writers as William Stafford, Lynn Sharon Schwartz, and Philip Levine.

Now I occasionally visit MFA programs as a guest, and in my travels also visit a number of other universities and colleges, including two-year schools. My take? Ultimately, it's the luck of the draw who's there when you're there, no matter what the setting—-and there are first-rate writers and teachers in all sorts of out-of-the-way places. Anyone pursuing an MFA will undoubtedly meet wonderful and established writers who are dedicated and effective teachers. And anyone in an MFA program will likely learn as much from their fellow students as from faculty. I'm all for anyone pursuing an MFA if they have the time and money (and while low-res programs allow more freedom with the time, the residential programs are more apt to offer fellowships and other aid packages to help with the money). But, like anything, there's no guarantee.

One bit of advice I didn't see yet on the thread would be for anyone interested in pursuing an MFA to attend the coming AWP conference this April in Denver (February 2011 it will be in Washington D.C). Two years ago in New York City there were 7,500 attendees. Last year in Chicago, there were over 8,000. With a little work, you could track down a few of the professors at schools that interest you; lots of programs even host receptions, where in addition to the professors, you can likely meet some graduates and current students. And if you find that some of the people involved are too busy to meet you, even if you've contacted them in advance, that might indicate what's ahead if you attend that institution. One more piece of advice for those thinking of going for the first time: bring a pal if possible; otherwise, the conference is so big as to be overwhelming.

I also wanted to write about the challenges of getting work distributed throughout the state.

I recall a trip in 2004, when I drove north out of Seattle, crossed the border without incident despite my minivan full of undeclared books and CDs, as well as the other paraphernalia of touring. I aimed first for Dawson Creek BC, where I was to work two days in schools. After that job, I meandered northwest, stopping en route at virtually every souvenir shop on the Alcan to peddle my three CDs and two books. I had good luck throughout, culminating in a big order in Whitehorse, from a distributor whose territory encompassed all I'd just driven and more. He felt confident my books and CDs would sell and promised my materials would be restocked. He even entertained the notion of having my Nome Poems translated into German.

Ultimately, my books and CDs sold steadily, albeit slowly, in Canada (for almost three years I received occasional checks from a Dawson Creek art gallery, which took 15 each of my books and CDs, the only consignment order of the whole trip). Alas, the distributor never did reorder, or pursue a German translation; perhaps I didn't push hard enough. Because of the difficulties shipping across borders, I never could interest him in my 2006 Alaskan children's CD, or my 2006 double CD, or any of my newer books. But having sold close to $2000 of books and CDs outright wholesale on that 2004 drive north alone, I've wondered why it's often been so much harder to place my books and CDs in Alaska.

As a rule, I've had better luck representing my own work. In 2000, a shop in Denali picked up my Week in Eek CD, and to our surprise the disk sold and sold. After a few reorders, they asked for a hundred. And then there was my good fortune with the Nome Poems book at Waterstone's in the airport, a story I recounted last week. Elsewhere, over the years, I've found regular support in Anchorage from Cook Inlet Books (when they existed downtown) and Title Wave, and from the Alaskana section at the Loussac Library, where Bruce Merrell—-and now Michael Catoggio—-have always cheerfully greeted me. I'd also like to especially thank David Cheezum at Fireside Books in Palmer (David is my favorite bookseller in the state), Gulliver's Books and the Museum of the North in Fairbanks, and both the Skagway Museum and Skagway Public Library: they've all not only bought my books and CDs, but they've effectively sold them and/or displayed them. Other shops have been hit-and-miss: some seasons I've interested the buyers; other seasons not. Hardest to understand is that it doesn't seem to be the quality of the work or the sales potential that is the driving force behind the stores' buying decisions.

Years ago, I learned that not only did most of the bookstores and gift shops throughout the state have books and CDs supplied by Todd Communications, out of Anchorage, but that many of them would only buy their inventory from Todd. So, back in 2000, once I interested the manager at Waterstone's in Nome Poems, I'd only started the process: though, in theory, she could order from the book's distributor, University of New Mexico Press, her boss preferred she work through Todd. So I had to do the legwork, making sure University of New Mexico Press, through West End Press, supplied Todd with the books, which they did. What I couldn't do, though, was duplicate the process that worked at Waterstone's with every buyer—-I'm just one person, and just like there's a stigma with self-publishing, there's a similar stigma with artists, or authors, who represent themselves. Even if I did manage to stop at a store and find buyers in, they were more apt to look at me funny, ask if Todd carried it, and then quickly dismiss me. The University of New Mexico regional rep, who also worked in behalf of other presses, and had hundreds of books on his list, certainly wasn't going to travel to Alaska. There wasn't enough business.

And Todd Communications? I'm still not sure what to make of the company. Back in 2000, no one there was advocating for the books; they were just filling orders from Waterstone's. Though I passed along sample copies, it was apparent that the actual work of representing the books, that is selling new books to buyers who weren't already inclined to buy, wasn't their strength. Later that summer, when Waterstone's expressed interest in carrying my Week in Eek CD, Todd Communications was quick to contact me. Because I self-produced the CDs, the music-business equivalent of self-publishing, Todd attached a number of conditions which gave me pause. Of course, Todd would be taking a healthy percentage of my cut, which was understandable. But there were also various fees to enter the system, and to keep inventory stored. I would also no longer be permitted to sell directly to anyone in the state except to stores I listed ahead of time, where I had an ongoing relationship—-and I understood that Todd much preferred that I give up those customers and let them handle it.

After doing the math, and contacting another musician who'd attempted to have his CDs distributed by Todd, I declined the offer, and have never second-guessed the decision. Of course, I understand the need for distribution, realize the challenges inherent in the work, and laud Todd for undertaking that challenge. Still, there has to be other options.

In 2008, I recommended my publisher, Catalyst Book Press, work with Todd so Are You Famous? could be available throughout the state. After jobs on the East Coast, I'd arranged to fly to Anchorage, where I had an interview scheduled on Alaska News Nightly, events in Homer, Anchorage, and Fairbanks. But this was my publisher's first book, so she was still learning about some of the paperwork involved in publishing; also, she'd been in Africa incommunicado, so it seemed, for a crucial week when some details with Todd needed confirmation. As a result, Todd had no books to distribute, and I arrived lugging the only copies to be found in state. So, while I had good state-wide publicity for both my new book and new double-CD, the best I could do was show the book as I could, and inform people that Todd would indeed be carrying it once they received the shipment and entered the book in their system. Before I flew out, I dropped off the remainder of my own stock at Todd's warehouse to facilitate the process.

I don't blame Todd, or my publisher, for the problems—-though we should have had plenty of time since I had books arrive six weeks earlier, in July, for jobs in Juneau, Haines, Skagway, Whitehorse, and Atlin. Ultimately, what's bothersome is that once I left the state, any momentum disappeared with me. In theory, Are You Famous? could have been a relatively easy sell from the beginning, and I did what I could to alert store managers. But obviously that wasn't enough. At some point, my publisher and I had to rely on the representatives from Todd Communications to help in some way. And maybe they did try, though anything they did was utterly ineffective. The book didn't sell in my absence. But how could it: it didn't get on the shelves. This past April, in Southeast, I showed the book to bookstores who'd never seen it previously. In June and July, I returned to Southeast, then performed from Kenai to Fairbanks, and, again, one of my tasks was to stop by bookstores and major gift shops, where I showed both Are You Famous? and the brand-new children's book, D is for Dog Team. Though I met with success and was glad for the enthusiasm, I kept wondering if there was another solution out there. How was it that unless I was doing this for myself, no one was aware of my books and CDs? Is it my job, ultimately, to represent myself in behalf of Todd Communications? I'm still figuring that one out.

Even stranger has been my experience with ANHA, now Alaska Geographic, which manages gift shops in national parks, state parks, and major visitor centers throughout the state. I had no luck at all there until 2003, when a new hire came on who knew my books and CDs from a stint at the Museum of History and Art in Anchorage. There, my first two CDs had sold well. Through her, I managed to get an order placed, where I heard my materials sold reasonably at several sites. But my contact left in 2005, and I've been unable to get any books or CDs reordered and have yet to ever have either my 2006 children's CD or 2006 double CD stocked, even though they're both very Alaskan and have both received good national reviews. I've phoned, emailed, stopped in the offices, left materials, attempted to make appointments. Supervisors have come and gone. The central office invariably refers me to the individual sites, who refer me back to the central office.

What frustrates me now is that this spring I received a phone call from a film producer asking permission to use an original fiddle tune from one of my CDs as part of a soundtrack for a film that's part of an exhibit at a new cultural center in state. I granted permission, and only asked that since the music from the CD was being used, I expected the gift shop to stock that CD. The filmmaker put me in touch with the cultural center staff and store manager and, in July, while on tour, I spoke with the manager in person, and left an additional copy of the CD used in the film, as well as other samples. The manager was going to fast-track the request, since the film was to debut in August. It's mid-November now, four months after my meeting, and just the other week I heard this is still on hold. I'm trying not to raise my hopes too high for summer 2010.

Is it me, the system, or a combination of the two? Or is the problem something else entirely? And if I'm having these problems, I wonder if in some way these issues contributed to the demise of Alaska Northwest Books (though sorry to hear the news, I appreciated hearing about it in one of last week's posts). I do expect to have better luck with the children's book and CD that University of Alaska Press is distributing. That's the next step in my exploration of how this work goes.

The past weeks I've sure enjoyed having this forum to write about some of my experiences, which has been a break from other tasks. Recently my work has taken a new turn, and I've been applying for a wide variety of university teaching positions. Some applications have asked for a one-page philosophy of teaching, which I've supplied, ending the piece like this:

As I go over this statement, I see I've forgotten the most important
thing: we all better have fun. As serious as the writing process and teaching process are—-and I treat them both with the utmost seriousness—-there better be room for fun. At the end of every semester, I always host a party.

Ending this here, I may not be throwing a party, but I'll share one of my poems. And while it's ostensibly about the writing of poems, it could just as well be about teaching:


Bill Stafford

I saw him read one summer in Fairbanks,
the patter between poems itself a poem,
because he was like that, fully at home
with words. That lit June night he offered thanks
for some gladness or other, and laid planks
of language that formed a lucky bridge from
one thought to the next. What might seem to some
a plainness too simple for poetry—drank
of poetry when he spoke. I reflected
for years on his writing, could hear him chime,
sly and instructive, as I connected
with my work. The voice said to make time
each morning, to begin early on task,
to learn from failures, to ask and to ask.

49 Writers Interview: Emily Wall

Poet Emily Wall lives in Juneau, where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Alaska Southeast. She will join the faculty at the 2010 Kachemak Bay Writers Conference.

Salmon Poetry, an Irish publisher, has produced Freshly Rooted, an artful collection of your poems. I understand they’re publishing another poet with Alaskan ties next year. How did your book find a home with Salmon, and how would you characterize your experience publishing with them?

I found Salmon and Jessie Lendennie, the publisher, through the poet Tom Sexton. He came to Juneau for a reading and I really liked his work. While browsing his book I noted who had published it. Once I started looking around, I realized Salmon had published a number of Alaskan poets. The press seems to have an affinity for lyric, Alaskan writers. So this felt like a good opening for me.

I feel grateful to have found Jessie and Salmon. It's not easy to find publishers who will look at unsolicited manuscripts outside of contests. Salmon has a real commitment to new poets. It's been a good experience getting to know the other Salmon poets, and learning the workings of a small press. Two years ago Jessie set up a reading for a number of Salmon poets at the Bowery Club in New York City; that has been a real highlight for me.

Salmon has also published my poems in an anthology of Salmon work (Salmon: A Journey in Poetry) and an essay I wrote in a book about writing and publishing(Poetry: Reading It, Writing It, Publishing It). I hope to get to Ireland one of these days; Jessie has promised me a little reading tour if I come over. I'd love to visit the press and meet more of the Salmon poets, many of whom live in or near Galway.

The poems in Freshly Rooted construct around a narrative frame of letting go and beginning again: your new marriage, your move to Alaska, your shifting relationship with parents. At what point did you begin to envision the themes and sequencing of the collection?

That's a really good question. I always try to write with no themes or sense of book in mind — I believe the best lyric poems come from our disorganized, internal selves, so I try not to orchestrate a book while writing new poems.

I worked on these poems for about five years. During those years I sent a number of them out, and many were published in journals. Once I realized I had enough poems for a book, and a number of them had been published, it started to feel like a book.

I remember distinctly the process I went through to organize the poems and shape them into a book. I printed them all out, then sat down one winter day in a chair by the window in my writing studio and began the process of forming them into a book. I started finding themes, and topics, and then started finding the narrative arc. This was surprising, as I hadn't realized I was writing a story until I saw all the poems together. The book is really a poem-memoir, but I didn't set out to write one. Once I had the narrative arc and I found a series of themes, it became easier to decide what to keep in the book, and what to let go of. The narrative suggested a natural order for most of the poems.

So that's how the first draft of the book came together. Since it took a while to publish, I ended up going through this process several more times before the final was published.

Your poetry emerges in a pleasing variety of forms, from haiku to prose poems. How do you discover the form that informs your images and thoughts in a particular piece?

Form and syntax are both intuitive for me. I sometimes will change a poem's form (especially a sestina), but usually the form I start with stays. The shape of a poem on the page has an organic relationship with the way the poem develops, so form is integral to meaning. For example, I'm working on a poem this week that ended up with a strange 3-line indented stanza form. After drafting it I wondered how I had gotten there until I realized it's the form we see most often in the Psalms. The poem I'm working on talks about an Old Testament story, so somehow that form came to me, out of some distant memory of seeing forms on the page in the bible. I think prose and haiku happen the same way — the particular poem needs a certain shape to come into existence and I simply trust my intuition.

Your poems read as if you’re fresh to this place, yet you arrived in Alaska thirteen years ago. How important is it for poets – and for all writers – to cultivate the patience to take a long and sometimes distant view of their work?

I can tell these questions are written by a writer! You've hit on one of the things I've found most difficult about publishing and working with this book. On the one hand, distance is very helpful to revision—some of those poems took me months to complete. I need distance to see how and where to revise. But once a poem is finished, that distance becomes a barrier for me — I don’t really want to work with the poem anymore.

I've really struggled at readings of this book — what I really want to do is get out a sheaf of brand-new poems to read, because that's where my mind is now — those are more exciting to me.

I remember once having N.Scott Momaday visit a class of mine. We were reading House Made of Dawn (of course) and wanted to discuss it. I could tell he really didn't want to — he kept turning the talk to his new work and the students kept steering him back. At the time I remember being annoyed at him, but now I completely understand.

To answer the last part of your question—how important is it to cultivate patience? It's necessary. Some poets can write books very quickly, and if a book is published through a contest it can come out very quickly — say a one to two year process. But I don't think my experience is unusual — it can take five or more years to get a book out with a small, independent press. I recently talked to Ken Waldman about his experience with West End Press and he told me it took his publisher about five years to publish his book too. So although it can be frustrating, it's a reality for many poets.

What prompted you to start your own blog, and how have you found the experience?

I have a blog and website and I've found both experiences interesting. I started the blog because a poet friend of mine and I had been having really interesting poetry conversations via email, and we agreed this conversation would benefit from being in a larger context and joining with other voices.

I also teach creative writing, and I think (I hope) it's interesting or useful to my students to see my own drafts, writing process, worries, triumphs, failures, etc. as a writer. In the classroom we have a certain kind of relationship to students —regardless of how informal we are as people. Even classrooms are set up to underscore that relationship — writer at the front, students in front or around her or him. But in the online world I can be more of a mentor and help students understand that there is no "there there" with writing—it's all a process and even published writers have black days.

The toughest part of blogging is not knowing the audience — who am I writing to? I know some of my students read my blog, but beyond that I don't know who might be reading it. Even writing a book was easier than this, as I could imagine my audience with the book, but with the blog, it's impossible. At times this make it hard to find a focus, and a voice. So I'm still experimenting, trying new things, seeing what might catch and hold interest.

49 Writers Weekly Round-Up

Tired of all the press on Sarah's new book? We got some nice press of our own this week at 49 Writers. This month's Alaska Magazine has a nice large write-up on our Ode to a Dead Salmon contest, including a big ugly picture and a quote from the winning entry, with a link to the finalists on their website. Way to go, 49 Writers. Okay, it's not Oprah, but we're happy.

How much of ex-Gov Sarah Palin's multi-million dollar advance will actually hit her bank account? Not as much as you think. For the low-down on what a writer actually makes on a book, check out urban fantasy author Carrie Vaughn's tell-all, The Reality of a Times Bestseller. Of course, Palin does get that bus painted with the cover of her book, which should help her numbers over the average Jane Author's.

As Bill Sherwonit mentioned in yesterday's guest post, Publisher's Weekly reports that Graphic Arts North and Alaska Northwest Books are liquidating under Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Ingram continues to distribute the company's titles, and the court will appoint a trustee to oversee the liquidation process, including the sale of some 350 active backlist titles. Now don't I feel small for fussing over my scrawny check from Carus Publishing, which I did finally receive, by the way, ten months after publication.

From the happily solvent University of Alaska Press comes Linda Johnson's Kandik Map, exploring how Athabaskan Indian Paul Kandik and French Canadian explorer Francois Mercier surveyed the upper reaches of the Yukon River and its tributaries, creating the earliest known map of the region. The map, which lacks the international border, is a reminder that the inhabitants of the region were one people before being separated by an artificial boundary. Linda Johnson was director of library, archives, and records management at Yukon College, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada.

Another new U of A release: James Wickersham's 1938 memoir, Old Yukon, based in large part on his diaries, newly edited by historian Terrence Cole. The publisher notes, "In this humorous and upbeat memoir, James Wickersham describes his career as a pioneer judge in the undeveloped Alaska territory and later as Alaska's sole congressional representative. It is considered by many to be one of the best descriptions of the gold rush period."

The U of A Press also reports The Alaska Journal of Anthropology (vol. 7, no.1 - 2009) has posted laudatory reviews of An Aleutian Ethnography and Wildflowers of Unalaska Island. An Aleutian Ethnography by Lucien M. Turner, edited by Raymond L. Hudson, was praised for the ethnographer's investigation of life on the Aleutian Islands in the late nineteenth century that uniquely lets the voices of the Aleut people shine through and for the editor's contribution. The reviewer of Wildflowers of Unalaska Island by Suzi Golodoff reports that the book will appeal to a wide range of readers, including those interested in Alaska Native ethnobotany.

As a follow-up to last week's thought-tickling MFA discussion (many thanks to all who took the time to weigh in), Barrow author Debby Dahl Edwardson notes that she also shared her MFA experience in an interview at Cynsations, a well-read blog on young adult books.

Author Bradford Matsen will be speaking about his new book Jacques Cousteau: The Sea King on Thursday, December 3 at 7 p.m. at Elliott Bay Books, First Avenue and South Main Street, Seattle.

Alaskan author Dana Stabenow guest blogged on Lipstick Chronicles about the not-so-dreaded rise of the eReader, declaring 'You don't scare me, Kindle.' On November 30th she'll be guest blogging on Murder by 4 about the genesis of the Kate Shugak television series.

A couple of on-topic but personal asides: in the mash-up of Sarah Press this week, I hope you caught my brother's live blog of the Oprah interview for The Awl. I admit to some bias, but there are some great one-liners. And in another item on which I'll devote a full post or two down the road, the illustrator for my 2011 (University of Alaska Press) picture book Lucy's Dance is posting weekly blogs of her sketches, with students and others from Stebbins weighing in with their comments and thoughts. Inspired by my visit to Stebbins last spring, Lucy's Dance is the story of how one child inspires a revival of an cultural tradition. Stop by and have a look.

Alaska Northwest Books R.I.P. : Guest post by Bill Sherwonit

Bill Sherwonit will be joining us as featured author next month, but in the meanwhile, he's keeping the news coming -- and this item is timely and important. Thanks to Bill for allowing us to crosspost this, which originally appeared on Bill's Anchorage Daily News community blog.

I was sitting in a favorite café this week when an old friend and colleague in the book-publishing world came over to say hello and share news of an unexpected and untimely death. Sara Juday, longtime regional manager for Graphic Arts Center Publishing Company, put it bluntly: “I have some bad news. Graphic Arts has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.”

Initially I didn’t get it. I was thinking Chapter 11, the kind that results in a company’s re-organization. Graphic Arts had been down that road once before and I knew the company has again been hurting financially. More than a year has passed since the company paid me any royalties. But Chapter 7? Liquidation? The company was going out of business? Wow, bad news indeed, not only for its employees, but also for its many authors and Alaska’s book lovers.

GACPC is the parent company of Alaska Northwest Books, which has been around in one form or another for decades – since 1959, in fact. (It became a Graphic Arts imprint in 1992.) Over the past half-century, Alaska Northwest Books has published hundreds of titles by dozens of Alaskan authors. For many years the company rightly touted itself as “the premier publisher of books about Alaska,” specializing in “history, natural history, biography, travel adventure, Native heritage, factbooks, cooking, guidebooks, and children’s books by Alaskans and about Alaska.” Though the imprint and its parent company have struggled in recent years, it has a laudable legacy.

I have a special fondness for both Alaska Northwest Books and Sara Juday, because the company – and especially Sara – got me into the book publishing business. Until Sara contacted me in 1989 and asked if I’d be interested in writing an Alaska mountaineering book, I never imagined I might become an author. The company published my first book in 1990: To the Top of Denali: Climbing Adventures on North America’s Highest Peak. It published five more of mine after that, the most recent in 2002, a guide to the Denali region. We stopped working together when I became interested in creative nonfiction; the company’s marketing people didn’t see much potential in such books. I largely lost touch with Sara and other Alaska Northwest Books staff after that, but I’ll always have a great appreciation for her role in my writing life, her enthusiastic support for Alaskan authors and books, and her friendship over many years.

She’s been out of a job for several weeks now and isn’t sure what she’ll do next, though she’s exploring some possibilities. Sara, I wish you all the best.

Though Graphic Arts filed to liquidate its assets last Friday (Nov. 13), I haven’t heard or read any local news coverage of its bankruptcy, perhaps because it did so in Portland, the company’s home base. I did find a couple of short articles online, including one by Publishers Weekly, which reports that Ingram Publisher Services – whose parent company loaned GACPC $1.5 million after the 2006 Chapter 11 bankruptcy and took over its book-distribution responsibilities – will continue “accepting orders, shipping books and processing and crediting returns” for Graphic Arts titles.

What all this means for Alaska Northwest Books’ many authors is unclear. Sara said she has no idea what will happen. And there’s no one at Graphic Arts to provide answers. The staff had cleared out even before the filing. Now the Chapter 7 proceedings will have to play out, which likely means that authors won’t know the status of their books – or royalties – for weeks or months.

Some of Alaska’s book-reading residents are bound to notice the company’s absence, though nowadays many other presses are publishing all sorts of books about Alaska, including the University of Alaska Press, my newest publishing “home.”

Still it’s a big loss, “like losing someone in the family,” as Sara said glumly before we said goodbye. Alaska Northwest Books, 1959-2009, RIP.

Your Turn: Going Rogue -- or not? (plus online book club ideas)

Thanks to Bill Sherwonit for passing on this news item from the Associated Press:

"An independent bookseller in Sarah Palin's home state is donating the proceeds he makes off her book to a group that is among the biggest critics of the former Republican vice presidential candidate.

Don Muller owns Old Harbor Books in Sitka. He's selling Palin's memoir, "Going Rogue," for $28.99, and says he will donate profits to Defenders of Wildlife."

Do I dare ask 49w readers: Are you planning to read the Sarah Palin book? Buy it? Ignore it?

If you're interested in what other readers have to say, KSKA's "Hometown Alaska" (featuring Ellen Lockyear, Kathleen McCoy and Charles Wohlforth) will be having a call-in book discussion at 2:00.


If the Palin question sets your teeth on edge, how about this one? We have another online book club coming up soon -- late December or early January. I was thinking of picking a short story from David Vann's Legend of a Suicide, but the author tells me it's coming out in paperback in March and we might want to wait just a little longer... Since I'm spending the morning mulling it over, I thought I might as well let anyone reading this mull it along with me. Any ideas?

In Defense of Self-Promotion, Part 3: A guest post by Ken Waldman

Two weeks ago, in my first post, I mentioned that in 1996 I attended a conference where I met John Crawford, of West End Press, which started a process that led him four years later to publish my first full-length collection, Nome Poems. I also mentioned that prior to that meeting, I'd self-published a chapbook that included some of the poems which later appeared in that book. Though I'd taken the initiative to self-publish, I'd also been fortunate to have already had poems from that book accepted in such literary magazines as Beloit Poetry Journal, South Dakota Review, and Poet Lore. Those publications, which meant that independent editors elsewhere had vetted the work, surely didn't hurt.

In that post, I also mentioned how earlier this year I'd self-published a book of acrostic poetry for children, D is for Dog Team, which University of Alaska Press picked up for distribution.

In the nine years between, I had six other books from six different publishers, each coming about through its own particular circumstances. I'll briefly tell those stories in the hope that one or more will be of use to other writers.

When Nome Poems came out in 2000, I felt well-prepared for a writer having a first book. I'd finished a reasonable draft of the manuscript six years earlier so I'd been living with the poems for a good long while. Having had so many of the poems appear in journals (and having met Naomi Shihab Nye, who encouraged me on the project—-an episode also mentioned two weeks in my first post here), I was confident the book had real merit and might find a wide readership, at least in Alaska. Also, having self-published twenty-six chapbooks the preceding five years, I had a rudimentary sense of how to market, and, yes, self-promote. In addition, I'd been freelancing as a visiting artist and performer for the past five years, and those skills overlapped with the marketing and self-promotion. And though I didn't know it when that first book came out, my first CD, which had been recently recorded in a rush, was going to come out in less than three months.

In the midst of that busy time, I'd booked a tour. First stop was the AWP conference (AWP is an acronym for Associated Writing Programs, an organization that's the clearing house for all things Creative Writing in higher education, though over the years its reach has extended further) in Kansas City, where I was to see the book for the first time, and where I'd bought space in the exhibit hall to sell my book and chapbooks. From there, I was off to Denver, where I'd rent a car. After a bookstore gig in Denver, I had a coffeehouse show in Boulder, then events in Albuquerque—-where the book was published—-and then several dates in Arizona, which included gigs in Phoenix, Prescott, and Flagstaff. Then I'd drive back to Denver, and fly home to Anchorage.

In Kansas City, I was excited to see the new book. Though a slow four-year process, there had been a sprint at the end so the books could arrive in Kansas City in time to sell at the conference. And since West End Press had been affiliated with University of New Mexico Press, the designer at the university press had worked on the book. In retrospect, it was odd I hadn't seen the cover beforehand, or even thought to ask—-or even thought to ask to proof the book. Still, when I first set eyes on the book, none of that seemed to matter. The design was better than anything I could have envisioned. Then I leafed through the pages.

Though I'd given a pristine copy to my publisher, it was a pristine hard copy from my ancient double floppy disk computer with Leading Edge word processing, my ancient Panasonic printer. This meant that someone at the press had to retype the manuscript. In the retyping, there had been mistakes, which in-house proofing didn't catch. The first poem I looked at, I found one small typo, and over the next two weeks, as I toured the Southwest, I must have found at least a dozen more, invariably in the midst of reading one of the poems at a public event. And though the discovery of each new error felt like another quick awful punch deep to my gut, and the accumulating number felt like a curse, I had no choice. The book was out in the world, blemishes and all. At least the book looked great, and, really, most of the errors were so minor no one else would likely notice. After struggling the past several years to sell chapbooks for $5 and $7, it was a pleasure to display this full-length book with color cover. It felt underpriced at $9.95.

While I didn't sell hundreds those first weeks, I happily sold a fair number and made some connections I've maintained to this day. Back in Anchorage, after landing at the airport, I decided to stop in Waterstone's (the airport bookstore that pre-dated Mosquito Books), where I introduced myself to the manager, Jana, who happened to be in. Before leaving, I offered her a copy of Nome Poems, which she accepted and promised to read. Ultimately, this simple act was one of the smartest things I've ever done for any of my books. Though Jana had been quick to warn me she didn't read much poetry, she did read the book as promised, enjoyed it, and felt others would also enjoy it. Over the summer, she displayed the book at the front table she reserved for recommended Alaska reading.

The next months, I stopped at Waterstone's every time I flew out of Anchorage, or returned home. Invariably, I saw a stack of my books on the front table. From Jana I learned that against the odds—-after all, this was poetry—-the book sold steadily.

This was one of the reasons why West End Pess went through most of the 1,500 run through the rest of the year and decided to reprint. On my end, I was quick to argue that for the next round of books the typos be fixed and the price raised to $11.95 (this second edition also eventually sold out, but far more slowly; West End Press was reluctant to invest in a third printing, so with John Crawford's blessing, in 2008 I reprinted it myself—-another example of self-publishing). Another reason the book sold so well was because while West End Press (and University of New Mexico
Press) were both small publishers, they were long-established small publishers. I learned how if I researched worldcat.org, I could see which libraries bought the book (and, indeed, this minute just looked it up, and saw 124 libraries, from the New York Public Library to the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library, owned the book in their collections; while the number could be more, it could certainly be less—-a similar check on my other books teaches the sad truth about that).

Since Nome Poems quickly went into a second printing, it made sense for me to pitch another book to my publisher. After all, I had plenty more Alaska-set poems—-again, many already published in respected national journals. This time, after I sent a manuscript, John Crawford quickly agreed to publish To Live on this Earth, which came out in 2002. Instead of setting all poems in the Bering Straits region, this book had poems set state-wide: a section of Interior poems (some music-based), a section of Southeast poems, a section of political poems, a section of rural poems (more poems from the Bering Straits region, as well as poems set in Eek and poems set in Barrow), and a short final section set in Alaska and beyond.

In 2004, at the AWP conference in Chicago, where I again had a table in the exhibit hall-—now with two full-length poetry collections, three CDs, and the chapbooks piled off to the side—-a young editor and publisher I knew asked to buy me a drink. We talked. A long-time fan of my work, he'd published a journal (where my work had appeared), ran two annual book contests, and brought out other books as he wanted. He asked if I'd consider having him publish a book of mine.

Of course I'd be interested, I told him, and mentioned how one weekend in 2003 I laid out sheets with favorite poems that hadn't been in the first two books (though most had been in the self-published chapbooks, and many had appeared in literary journals), and constructed six more full-length books. The preceding year, I'd entered contests, but gotten nowhere. He could have his choice of one of those books.

“Whoa,” he said. “I don't work that way.”

“No?”

“No, give me all your poems,” he said. “I'll choose the book I want to publish.”

I shrugged my shoulders, and we shook hands. After the conference I sent him the six collections I thought had been ready to go, and told him to have at it.

Fourteen months later, May 2005, I heard back. And while I'd never have chosen the poems he chose for a full-length book, I had to admit the poems cohered in a different way—-instead of a geographic, or narrative, arc, these were mostly all dark and energetic. The challenge was in finding an order to the book, and after we went back and forth several times, we agreed how it would read, first poem to last. Since his strength was editing, not design, I asked whether I could suggest a professional designer. He thought that would be fine, especially since I offered to split the cost.

By early July we were ready to go for a mid-September publication date. I'd seen proofs-—the front cover, the back cover (which included the blurbs I'd solicited), the poems inside, all the rest. My designer only needed a final okay from the publisher for the last of the changes. A week stretched into two weeks, stretched into four. Mid July turned into late August.

It was a little more complicated than this, though. I'd set up dates in the Midwest, including ones in the publisher's home state. I'd wanted not only to have the book to sell, but had planned to set up even more dates specifically around having the book available. I also expected to use the book to apply for certain grants and fellowships. Having a book is one thing. Having two books is something more. Having three is even more-—and I was waiting for that third book. And there was even more to it than that: in October I was turning 50 years old. Not only was this book a present to myself, but I had a big double CD coming out, and in early August had just recorded my first children's CD, which I realized could also come out in time for my birthday. Everything was seemingly on track, but for this poetry collection, which had fallen through cracks. The publisher was not returning emails from the designer, who was asking whether the last fix was correct. Nor was he responding to my emails, phone calls, or letters, all checking about the status of the book. Without confirmation, I wrote, I couldn't market it in any way.

Labor Day weekend, I decided to call a new friend, Bryce Milligan, a writer and musician who was also the publisher of Wings Press in San Antonio. We'd met two months earlier when he attended my performance at Gemini Ink, a San Antonio literary organization. Afterward, he'd bought one of my books, one of my CDs, and we'd talked. Though we hadn't been in touch the past two months, he didn't seem surprised to hear from me. I explained my dilemma, and asked him, as a writer and publisher himself, what he'd do if he were in my situation.

“I can do that book myself,” he said. “I have a small hole in my schedule. Get me the files, and I could have it out in ten days. All you need to do is promise to buy some of the books from me.”

“I need to do that anyway,” I said.

“500 books?” he said.

“I'd need to buy 500 anyway,” I answered. Though I hadn't formalized such an arrangement with John Crawford at West End Press, I'd had to buy books, then buy more and more, and had gone through 500 relatively quickly. This seemed a more efficient way to do it, even if I had to spend more of my own money up front for my own stock.

Later that day, I called the other publisher. Getting the machine, I started to explain that since I hadn't heard from him, I'd be withdrawing the book. At that, he picked up the phone, and sputtered how he'd sue me if I'd withdraw the book.

“But you haven't answered the phone or returned an email in two months,” I reminded him. And then I reminded him the book was supposed to be out in mid September, which was now an impossibility. “Somebody else has offered to do the book,” I said.

“I'll sue you,” he said, and explained he'd already put in a lot of time and money into the project. Then he hung up.

When I called back Bryce, he suggested that since I had no contract with the first publisher, there was no grounds for a suit, and that I should talk one more time with him and try to establish firm dates. “If he balks,” Bryce said, “remind him you have another publisher.” He paused. “And while I'd be happy to do that book, if he does decide to do it, you can just get another to me in the next couple of days, and I'll do that one. Like I said, I have a hole in my schedule.”

“But don't you want to see the poems?”

“I'm sure they're fine,” he said. “I read your other book and saw your show. Let me know what happens.”

After the first publisher reaffirmed that if I gave him more time, he'd have the books for me by November 1, I went to work typing in poems so I could email Bryce a file. Within a day, I was done. Less than two weeks later, I had a preview copy of the book--which I titled The Secret Visitor's Guide--just in time for a major fellowship application. I received the bulk of my copies in late October, just after my birthday. Mid-November, I received copies of And Shadow Remained, the book from the Ohio publisher. The book looked beautiful and some readers have commented that it's their favorite of my collections. It remains the only one that was so deeply edited. Despite the confusion with the communication, I was grateful for the help; in fact, without that confusion I'd never have had the Wings Press publication.

My fifth book, Conditions and Cures, was a finalist in a 1994 book contest from Steel Toe Books, a new poetry publisher out of Kentucky. Maybe I had a slight advantage because not only had I once met the publisher, Tom Hunley, in passing, but was acquainted with his own poetry, which I liked. Though I don't make a habit of entering contests, in 1995 I tried again. This time I wasn't even a finalist, but received a personal note from Tom, telling me he'd enjoyed the book, as had another judge. It was the third judge who hadn't much liked it, which was why it had been eliminated before the final cut. Regardless, he especially admired the sequence of comedy sonnets in the collection, was mulling doing a chapbook series, and wondered whether I'd be interested.

I answered that indeed I'd already self-published the comedy sonnets as a chapbook, albeit in slightly different form. And while I'd be happy to have him do a chapbook, it made no sense. With the two poetry collections I now had, plus the two about to come out in the next two months, I'd really have no way to sell a chapbook for whatever price we figured. But if he'd be interested in doing the full-length book, which had been judged good enough to be a finalist the year before, I'd certainly agree to it, and could certainly guarantee I'd buy some hundreds of books, which would lessen his risk.

A few weeks later, Tom agreed to publish the book with a summer 2006 publication date.

My last poetry collection began after an idle comment. March 2006, after a reading in San Antonio for my new Wings Press book, the publisher, Bryce Milligan, mentioned that if he could find a book of really good political poems, he'd publish it in a second. I rued that many of my political poems had already been published, and let Bryce's remark slide.

But three weeks later, subletting a little house in Louisiana, watching the Daily Show on Comedy Central, I wrote a political sonnet in the manner of the comedy poems that led to Tom Hunley accepting the Conditions and Cures book. So, now I had one new political poem. Torture was a breaking story then—-alas, as it sometimes remains now—-and a few days later I wrote an Abu Ghraib poem. The next weeks I wrote a Laura Bush poem, a Barbara Bush poem, a George W. Bush post-Katrina New Orleans poem. Somewhere I wrote a sonnet in George W. Bush's voice. Mid-May to mid-July, working for the first half of the summer in Skagway, I wrote several dozen more, most in the 43rd president's voice. Quickly, I'd somehow accumulated a whole book, so emailed Bryce, who answered that his distribution had changed, so he could no longer do books without a nine-month to one-year lead time. Besides, he wasn't convinced the project really worked for him.

I disregarded Bryce's criticisms. Convinced I had a new book on my hands, and one that felt especially topical, I made a few more queries, and remembered a friend, a well-published poet, who was an especially skilled self-promoter himself (and I should mention not only has this poet hosted me several times at his various reading series, but we originally met more than a decade ago at an AWP conference), who had a publishing house that was currently in hiatus. Maybe he'd be interested.

Though that part of his business remained in hiatus, he wrote back to say he'd be happy to help where he could. In this case, while he'd “publish” the book, we were both aware for most intents I was self-publishing through him. He supplied the ISBN and his publishing company's name, and would enter the necessary paperwork, so the book at least could be considered authentic, at least through the process the book business has established. Meanwhile, I'd design, manufacture, distribute, and pay for the book. Mid August, I picked up 2000 copies of As the World Burns: the Sonnets of George W. Bush and Other Poems of the 43rd Presidency from a manufacturer in Austin, Texas-—one chosen because I knew it specialized in short-run projects, and I'd be swinging through Austin anyway about the time the book would be done.

One Austin friend who has professional experience designed the text of the book, working gratis. I paid the manufacturer for the services of its in-house designer, who did the cover. After picking up the boxes, I drove seventy miles to San Antonio, where I left two dozen copies at Bryce Milligan's as a thank-you, then drove several blocks where I knocked on Naomi Shihab Nye's door in the same neighborhood. I had no appointment, just a standing invitation to visit, which I'd previously never taken her up on. Naomi was in, but busy, and quickly leaf through the book, lauded the project, and asked to have several copies of the book, which she promised to pass along to contacts she thought would appreciate it—-one of which directly led to an invitation to read fifteen months later in Pittsburgh at the International Poetry Forum (and the stipend from that one invitation, and an accompanying school visit in town, which came as a result of the first invitation, alone nearly paid for the whole run of books). By the way, for anyone interested in that book, you won't find any mention on my regular website because I work in a variety of venues in a variety of communities, and there's no need to mention the political nature of some of my writing. I do have a parallel website: www.kenwaldman.com/astheworldburns. One other note about this book. Though the Ohio publisher had been challenging to work with as he published my collection, the following year he offered to take on this political book in my behalf, which meant helping place it with Small Press Distribution in Berkeley, which then meant national distribution that it couldn't have had otherwise, at least not without me or my nominal publisher spending an inordinate amount of time and money.

Finally, the publication of my 2008 memoir, Are You Famous?, is a variation of all these stories.

In 2002, I attended BookExpo in New York City (indeed, I attended this past May for the first time since, and wrote about it in 49 Writers), and met representatives from Cinco Puntos Press, of El Paso, who were friends of friends. The business manager at the time was the son-in-law of the owners. He was also an Irish flute player, and offered to host a house concert if I was ever passing through El Paso. Early 2003 I took him up on it, and during the tour of the Cinco Puntos Press office, met their marketing director, Jessica Powers, a writer, herself. Jessica liked my poetry—-a reviewer for New Pages, she favorably wrote about my second West End Press book, which I'd dropped off on her invitation—-and we remained in touch. (An odd aside: a few years later, driving through El Paso, when she still lived there, I stayed one night with her and her then husband; she passed along a book that she'd recently been given to review, which was coming out in a few months, and which she thought I might be interested in—-that night I stayed up until 5 a.m. to finish Ordinary Wolves.)

In 2007, Jessica phoned me that she was mulling starting a publishing house. We'd last seen each other in California in 2005, when, during a visit, we exchanged manuscripts. She read a draft of Are You Famous?, which I'd recently written. I read her young adult novel, The Confessional, which Knopf was going to publish in the next year. So two years later, as I listened to Jessica tell me her plans, she asked whether that manuscript of mine was still available. It was certainly available, I let her know, which started a process that led to her publishing the book in August 2008—-more of the story of how that book came to be is in the final chapter of that book, the postscript. (One thing not mentioned in the book is that while Jessica is a terrific editor, and a smart marketer, and has been just great to work with, book design is not her strength; and while design is not my strength either, if I hadn't my experiences, that memoir would have looked much different, and, I believe, much worse, if I hadn't worked hard as an advocate to make sure certain things looked the way they did—-having that say can be one of the advantages, and disadvantages, of being involved with a small press.)

I thank Deb and Andromeda for the opportunity to write here. Funny, I apologized to Deb last week at the length of these posts, and promised this one would be shorter; instead, obviously it's the longest yet. I do go on. Funny, too, I meant to respond to Andromeda, who commented on my last post; I'm not sure about the thicker skin stuff since this past week I just got rejected from being on the roster of touring artists in Alabama schools. I'm not sure whether I'll even bother seeking an explanation. It feels like such a little thing since I don't get to Alabama much, but I did wonder what more I could offer, or how I could have done this differently since I answered the questions, followed the directions on the form, and included reasonable supplemental materials. I'd even been in touch with the director of the program before applying--and a well-respected musician who runs an arts council in the state, who himself does a lot of school visits around the state, who'd hired me to work in his community's schools, and who is a big supporter of my work, had been one of my references. One thing for sure: we're inevitably getting rejected in this business for a multitude of reasons, some of which are out of our control. That doesn't seem to change.

Funny, too, that when I first imagined these posts, one of the subjects I wanted to write about was the challenges of getting work distributed throughout our state, which, in my case, has meant challenges with working in collaboration with Todd Communications, Alaska Geographic (formerly ANHA), and others. I have one more chance next week; I'll strive to get to that, briefly.

49 Writers Publisher Interview: Epicenter Press

Continuing our series of 49 Writers Publisher Interviews, we check in with Kent Sturgis, president and publisher of Epicenter Press, Inc. Sturgis is a two-term former president of the Independent Book Publishers Association, a national trade organization. He was born and raised in Fairbanks, where he edited the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner during the pipeline boom. He has edited dozens of books and written two of his own.

Who started Epicenter Press?

Lael Morgan and I incorporated Epicenter Press in Fairbanks in 1988. We are a home-grown book press that sells Alaska stories to the outside world.

Lael Morgan forced me get into book publishing. No kidding. She didn’t hold a gun to my head, but she might as well have. If you know Lael Morgan, you know how persuasive – “relentless” might be a better word – she can be.

I was taking a sabbatical from journalism after twenty years working the Associated Press and later the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. “Let’s go into book publishing and buy Alaska Northwest Publishing Company from Bob Henning,” Morgan suggested in a telephone call in 1987. We had not seen one another for twenty years since working together on the Daily News-Miner during the Fairbanks flood. Henning’s company published books about Alaska; including the Milepost, and two magazines, including Alaska magazine. We went to see Henning in Edmonds, Washington. He introduced us to three other prospective buyers who had approached him. But even after the five of us combined our financial resources, we couldn't raise enough cash to make a deal.

After the group broke up, Lael and I went back to Henning thinking we might buy the books only. At that time, Alaska Northwest had two to three hundred titles on its list. Henning was encouraging. I remember going home one weekend with a huge stack of sales and inventory reports. I discovered that the company had lots of inventory in the slow sellers, and not much stock in the best-sellers. A light went on in my head. This meant that in addition to raising money for the sale price, which apparently included the dubious value of the slow sellers, we would have to raise additional money to reprint the bestsellers.

We backed off, deciding it made more sense for us to start a book-publishing enterprise from scratch--one book at a time. And that’s what we did.

Which books were among the first you published?

The first year, 1988, we published four titles. Lael and I each contributed one.

Lael wrote Art & Eskimo Power: The Life and Times of Alaskan Howard Rock. This is an absorbing and important biography of the Eskimo journalist who founded the Tundra Times and helped fight for settlement of the Alaska Native land claims. Although we got a very nice review in Publishers Weekly, leading us to believe, falsely, that national reviews would not be difficult to get in the future, I wish we had held off publishing this book until we knew more about book promotion and marketing and had better distribution.

I contributed Four Generations on the Yukon, a pictorial biography of the Binkley family in Fairbanks, which had been running riverboats on Alaskan waters for four generations (five, now). We also published Reaching for a Star, a history of the Alaska Constitutional Convention by Gerald Bowkett, and Steamboats on the Chena, a history of the riverboat trade into Fairbanks, by Basil Hedrick and Susan Savage.

At the time, crude e-mail was just coming into use, but there was no such thing as an “attachment,” and not yet available was the software that ultimately leveled the playing field for independent publishers to compete with the big New York houses. It cost a dollar a minute to telephone the Lower 48, and FedEx was nowhere to be seen. There was no book-publishing infrastructure in Alaska — no book editors, designers, marketers, and certainly no book printers. I moved to the Seattle area to learn how to publish books.

What niche do you hold in the marketplace?

We are a regional trade publisher specializing in nonfiction titles about Alaska. Within this regional “niche,” we publish all varieties of nonfiction. Although most of our titles relate in some way to Alaska, we do occasionally publish titles from elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

What are some of your best-selling titles?

Each publisher has its own definition of what constitutes a best-seller. In our realm, we consider a title to be a best-seller if it is reprinted on a regular basis and has sold mid tens of thousands of copies.

Four titles come to mind:

1. Two Old Women by Velma Wallis. We published the original cloth edition of this unusual story based on an Athasbascan Indian legend. The book won a Western States Book Award and later won a book award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. We sold paperback rights to HarperCollins and, through agents, licensed translation rights worldwide. Two Old Women has been published in eighteen languages.

Even going on fifteen years after its original publication, this amazing little book continues to be a bestseller in Germany, where five editions have been published. The book has been read in its entirety on the German version of National Public Radio. In Italy, the owner of a chain of hotels was so taken by the book that he published a private edition, placing a copy in every one of his hotel rooms. Our standing joke for a while with Velma Wallis was that her book was competing with the Bible in Italy. And the Two Old Women story goes on and on. One of these days it will be made into a movie.

2. Lael Morgan wrote Good Time Girls, the charming history of prostitution in Alaska and the Yukon. This book was on the LA Times best-books-of-the-year list after its publication and Lael was named Alaska historian-of-the-year by the Alaska Historical Society for this work. We have sold about 50,000 copies of two editions of this book, and it continues to be a bestseller year after year.

3. It was a pleasure working with Governor Jay Hammond on his autobiography, Tales of Alaska’s Bush Rat Governor, which was a huge success due to the governor’s immense popularity and because the book was so well written and entertaining and received glowing reviews. The book was published after Hammond left office. But he loved to interact with people and made more than one hundred public appearances on behalf of this book.

Shortly after its release, we scheduled a signing for the governor at Hearthside Books in Juneau. It quickly became apparent that the bookstore would be overwhelmed with Hammond fans, so the event was moved to the Juneau community center. Instead of running the scheduled hour and a half, the event continued for more than four hours, with lines of people circling the block waiting to get in. Hammond signed 900 books!

4. And, then, of course, there was Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska’s Political Establishment Upside Down, by Kaylene Johnson. Predating the 2008 presidential election, Sarah was the first and only book in print about Sarah Palin when Republican presidential nominee John McLean selected Palin as his running made. The cloth first edition and two paperback editions sold nearly 200,000 copies. Two of the editions appeared on New York Times bestseller lists on the same weekend.

Has there been a shift in what readers expect and which Alaskan authors/books do well?

Fundamentally our market in Alaska is one part local audience and one part visitors. At the heart of this market is interest in Alaska adventures, lifestyles, the Alaska dream, and personal stories about unusual aspects of living in Alaska. Still, we have seen a few shifts.

Individual titles about sled-dog racing, mainly the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, don’t seem to sell as well as they once did. There are many mushing books in print.

In recent years, we have ventured into the true-crime genre, thanks to the work of Tom Brennan. This content sells well, and may be bringing young and new readers into books. Books about the “unexplained” such as Strange Stories by Ed Ferrell and Haunted Alaska by the late Ron Wendt are popular year after year.

History can be a tough sell, but a recent bright spot has been North to the Future: The Alaska Story, 1959-2009, by Dermot Cole. Publication of this absorbing history was made possible by the Alaska Historical Society.

Literary nonfiction, which is difficult to define, has been a mixed bag for us over the years. But we have been pleased to discover in recent years that these titles have found a place in the literary nonfiction market outside of Alaska and help sell some of our other titles to a broader market. Two titles that come to mind, which I strongly recommend for the quality of the stories and fine writing, are Surviving the Island of Grace by Leslie Leyland Fields and Moments Rightly Placed, the Aleutian memoir by Ray Hudson.

Our 2009 year-to-date bestsellers:

1. The Spill, by Sharon Bushell & Stan Jones
2. Good Time Girls, Lael Morgan
3. North to the Future, Dermot Cole
4. Haunted Alaska, Ron Wendt
5. Amazing Pipeline Stories, Dermot Cole
6. Jon Van Zyle’s Alaska Sketchbook (new edition)
7. Alaska Blues, Joe Upton
8. Sarah, Kaylene Johnson (cloth First Edition)
9. Cold Crime, Tom Brennan
10. Strange Stories of Alaska and the Yukon, Ed Ferrell

How many books do you typically publish each year?

This varies depending on our financial situation and the number of promising proposals we have in hand. Some years we publish as few as two new titles. In busy years, when sales have been strong, we have published as many as a dozen.

Recognizing that not every book idea or project will fit on our list, we also have begun to reach out to authors, self-publishers and private and public entities through Aftershocks Media, a subsidiary enterprise that offers editing services, consulting and mentoring, book packaging, print brokering, and distribution of titles other than our own.

In which genres?

Within the Alaska category, we publish memoirs, history, humor, true crime, books about sled dog racing, Native American stories, and books by and about strong Alaska women. We’ve also published a few guides, although generally we do not publish travel guides, and a couple of self-help titles. We call all this our “Alaska Book Adventures.” As a rule we do not publish fiction, children’s books, or poetry.

Over the years, what kinds of changes have you made with your list?

With the availability of on-demand digital printing, we now can keep in print indefinitely titles that otherwise might have been dropped from our list in the years past as sales slowly declined. Even when we print on an offset press, we tend to do smaller printings now, knowing that we can get a reprint delivered from most North American printers in about 30 days. At the same time, we have been moving away from color gift books and so-called “coffee table” books. The main thing we look for now is the quality of the story.

Describe your ideal author. In other words, if one of us wanted to wow you with a proposed project, how would we do it?

The dream author is a marketing-savvy, self-promoting individual living in Alaska who comes to us with a tight, well-written, skillfully self-edited work with strong commercial potential that makes us shout “Eureka!” when we read it, and who has access to photos scanned at the proper density — if we need them. I’m grinning as I write this. I have never met such an author.

The economy has hit publishing hard. Are you seeing any encouraging signs? What is the future for small and regional publishers?

You have to be an optimist to be in this business. Even when the overall economy is in decent shape, book publishing is a challenge for all the reasons you can imagine – declining literacy, disappearance of many independent book stores, returns, increased reliance on the web, and a growing array of e-reader formats and devices. Meanwhile, there are too many publishers printing more paper books than can be sold.

E-books comprise the fastest-growing segment of the book industry, yet the percentage of the total is still very low. But this is the wave of the future.

I believe the small, independent niche and regional publishers may find it easier to survive than the large national trade publishers. But “easier” is a relative term. A lot of trade publishing companies are going to fail if they do not adjust to changes. But others will rise behind them, more attuned to the new technology and changing needs of the reading public.

Meanwhile, we all can take solace in this: content will always be needed, no matter what the delivery system.

What do you most want to communicate to readers about your books and to writers about submissions?

Perhaps it goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway--start with original material. No matter what your topic, fiction or nonfiction, tell a story that will entertain as well as inform.

Maintain high standards for your work. In dealing with agents and publishers, share only your very best effort. Unless asked to do so, do not submit any draft material. Seek objective criticism of your work. Take with a grain of salt praise from your family and friends.

The cover letter should be the best letter you’ve ever written. Slave over it.

Often I am surprised to receive nonfiction proposals from authors who have spent a great deal of time researching their subjects, but little time researching prospective publishers.

If you are considering self-publication or have interest in publishing as a business, join the Independent Book Publishers Association (formerly the Publishers Marketing Association).

The best book I have seen about the publishing process for prospective authors is How to Get Happily Published by Judith Appelbaum.

Kent Sturgis can be contacted at kent@epicenterpress.com.

49 Writers Weekly Round-Up

Have you weighed in on the MFA question this week? We'd love to hear from writers who've earned MFAs, who are working on MFAs, or who are wondering if they should pursue MFAs.

Another popular post this week was part two of featured author Ken Waldman's "In Defense of Self-Promotion." Ken's post along with Mark Coker's Smashwords Book Marketing Guide inspired author Arne Bue to push his comfort zone to post a "non-academy award winning video I made, starring old me."

Also, author Ann Chandonnet shares a link to BookTour.com, where authors can enter and search for upcoming events.

Of course, blogs are another great place to promote your work. Debby Dahl Edwardson, author of the picture book Whale Snow and Blessing’s Bead, is featured in an interview on a blog called Through the Tollbooth

Our own ex-gov Sarah Palin apparently has her own ideas about how to get readers to buy a book: omit the index. That way folks who want to know what you said about them have to plunk down some cash. But then again, with a print run of one million, do you really care? But is it really one million? Daily Finance crunches the numbers on the Palin memoir, providing some interesting insight into how these things do (or don't) work.

Praeger Books announces the release of Barry Scott Zellen's second nonfiction book on the transformation and modernization of the Arctic region: Arctic Doom, Arctic Boom: The Geopolitics of Climate Change in the Arctic. The second of a three-volume project exploring the foundations of security, stability and sovereignty in the modern Arctic, it examines the challenges and opportunities of a polar thaw; considers the impacts on geopolitics, international security, and international commerce; and discusses what a “post-Arctic” world might look like.

The book includes an introduction by former Alaska Governor and U.S. Interior Secretary Walter J. Hickel, and a foreword authored by Professor Daniel J. Moran of the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. "The author argues that the twilight of the reign of ice in the Arctic marks the dawn of a new geostrategic pivot and economic powerhouse—a rich new navigable “Mediterranean” basin full of beneficial promise for the future of the Arctic rim nations, the indigenous Arctic peoples, and human history," notes the publisher.

Looking for an agent? Check out the recent Writers Digest article "24 Agents Who Want Your Work" and its companion piece, "10 Things You Should Do Before Querying an Agent."

Libraries in peril, plus an upcoming tour

Recently, Nancy Lord wrote about our need for libraries.

Today, we direct you to an ADN Community Voices blogpost by Bill Sherwonit about the Anchorage public library system's current challenges. Sherwonit says,

It’s not like local libraries and their staffs are living high on the hog. If the Daily News is correct and Sullivan’s proposed new budget passes, the city’s public library system will have lost 13 percent of its municipal funding in just two years. Since 2000, the staff of Anchorage’s public libraries has shrunk from 114 to 86 people, its librarians have fallen from 43 to 34. On the positive side, volunteers are way up, from 120 to 840 (though volunteer hours haven’t risen so dramatically). While money and staffing are down, both library visits and the variety of services are higher than ever. In short, Anchorage’s five public libraries are doing more with less. But that’s not sustainable, say library supporters. Anchorage’s library system is struggling to survive.

Sherwonit also wrote:
Before leaving (Loussac Library), I stopped and said hello to Special Collections Librarian Michael Catoggio, who will lead an “insider’s tour” of the Alaska Collection next Wednesday, Nov. 18, at 3 p.m. (Those wishing to participate are asked to rendezvous at the main reference desk on level three.) It’s a tour I don’t want to miss.

A while back, Michael Catoggio wrote his own post for 49w: 'I want to be your librarian.' He really means it! We hope his tour is well-attended; it sounds like a great deal for writers and researchers.