Andromeda: September planning for October book clubs

The other night I pitched the idea to my book club: Could we read an Alaska book for our next meeting, in October? They didn't yet know, and perhaps some of our readers don't either, but October will usher in our very first Alaska Book Week, a time to celebrate books by Alaskans or about Alaska. (Deb and other volunteers will be sharing much more soon, but I wanted my own book club to get a quick heads-up.)

If you're like me, your own bookshelves sag under the weight of books dutifully and optimistically purchased but not yet read. I used to feel guilt about this, but now, I insist upon a more positive outlook. Books-- as critic Michael Dirda reminded us in a lecture last Sunday at Loussac library-- are first and foremost, a pleasure. Yes, we are changed by them. But even more, we are entertained and sustained by them. Having stacks and stacks of unread books is like having food in the larder for a long winter. We should be glad to have untapped bounty so close at hand.

On my own shelves, I have many not-yet-read books by Alaska authors. I suggested a few to my club. They made their own pitches in response. We settled upon a nonfiction classic that will soon be made into a movie: Firecracker Boys by Dan O'Neill. At least two women in our group had already read it, but they loved it so much they want to read it again. Many more of us had meant to read it.

Other favorites or TBRs that were named: Don Rearden's The Raven's Gift (a haunting tale fitting for Halloween month), Seth Kantner's Ordinary Wolves, Lynn Schooler's The Blue Bear or his newer memoir, Walking Home. My own additional recommendations would take pages and include the names of nearly every author who has guest-posted or been interviewed at this site.

But my list is less interesting than your list, so I'd like to ask: any other Alaska books that you'd recommend for a book club to read this October? (Yes, it's perfectly fine to name your own and provide a short summary.) Does your own book club plan to read an Alaska book? If you're not the clubby type, would you like to commit here to reading an Alaska book in mid-October? Share your thoughts, post this to Facebook, chat up Alaska Book Week by email, or support the effort in any other way that comes to mind.

Deb: When Writers Talk

Fair warning:  this is the first of what will no doubt be several posts connected in one way or another to the experience I had at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers fiction workshop a few weeks ago.  SVCW was my first big indulgence as a writer:  an out-of-state gathering where I could learn from top-notch authors, agents, and editors.  The sense of community there was beyond anything I could have imagined. I felt welcome everywhere, and I loved it all: the intense workshops; the afternoon craft talks; the panels of professionals; the readings, the dinners, the parties. 

Among the best of the best  was an onstage conversation between authors Anne Lamott and Mark Childress.  It was this sort of conversation we had in mind when we began our Crosscurrents series earlier this year.  Take two great authors – Dani Shapiro and Sherry Simpson, for instance –  put them onstage to chat about writing and ideas, and you get something close to magic.  (Yes, that’s a plug for tomorrow’s big event at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Auditorium at 7 pm, when Shapiro and Simpson talk on Exposure and Betrayal: Writing Memoir.)

Lamott and Childress are longtime friends.  He asked her what it was like to be a third generation writer; she said it taught her to write every day as a “debt of honor, by pre-arrangement.”  They agreed that much of writing has to do with trying to capture the person inside of you who feels so deformed, admitting how often they’re scared they’re not good enough, how often the sense of being so different that they explore in their fiction is exactly what they feel like in “real life.” 

The writer’s life is a lot about nothing happening for a long, long time, Childress said, except that you sit down and do it.  Lamott asked him how he rebounded from a painful publishing experience, the time the prints were pulled on a movie based on his novel a few days before its official release – an eighteen million dollar project gone belly-up.  Remarkably, the film went on to become a cult hit and is now in the black.  Regardless of the stakes, Lamott and Childress agreed that writers have to put themselves out there; they have to be determined. 

“You own what happens to you,” Lamott said. “Be strict with yourself.  There’s a thing on your shoulder saying this is not good enough, but this is what you do.”  She advised writers to give their work to people who will be strict with them.  “The hugest gift one writer can give to the other is the truth,” she said.  “About the third draft you might be able to show it to someone you trust,” she said. “Cultivate that person who tells you where it really starts, where it really ends.” As an example, she pointed to her latest book, Imperfect Birds.  The project had gone to copy editing when Childress told her it needed to start in a different place. And he was right, she said.  She cut the beginning and it’s a better book for it.

We’re not alone in this game.  Hard questions, difficult truths, poignant revelations – those are what happen when writers talk.  It's what you can expect tomorrow at 7 pm when two fine writers tackle tough questions on memoir.

Deb: Let the fall fun begin

Our 49 Writers Goodbye Summer party for members and volunteers is only two days away (Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 8:30, after the Crosscurrents event), so it must be safe to talk about fall.  If we do say so ourselves, there’s a fantastic 49 Writers line-up of affordable courses to tempt both emerging and accomplished writers this fall.  We’ve tapped talented local instructors Andromeda Romano-Lax and Susanna Mishler, and we’ve scheduled four out-of-state authors to round out the show – plus we’ve teamed up with the Fairbanks Arts Association to bring a non-fiction workshop to Fairbanks.

Our course offerings fit (more or less; we like to stay flexible) into one of three categories:  Elements courses that are generally 6 to 8 hours long; genre-based workshops that typically run 12 to 15 hours; and special topics that are normally covered in a single session of 2 or 3 hours. 

Elements courses include cross-genre topics like character, voice, narrative structure, point of view, description, beginnings, revision, and narrative time.  In workshops, students draft and revise within their genres. While we hope all of our courses are feisty and fun, our special topics courses are intended to be especially so, with an exploratory bent.  

This term brings two engaging Elements courses, Time in Narration and Perspectives and Viewpoints, both taught by Andromeda Romano-Lax, a well-published writer of both fiction and non-fiction.  In three Tuesday evening sessions beginning Oct. 4, she’ll explore narrative time management, one of the most overlooked yet essential elements of creative writing: linear and non-linear storytelling, jumping and shifting, compression and expansion, flashbacks, parallel story lines, experimental approaches, and time and memory as subject. Students will write and share short writing exercises, and they’ll analyze successful examples from published works as they consider how to manipulate time more creatively and purposefully.

We’ve scheduled Perspectives and Viewpoints to begin on Tuesday, Oct. 25 so that students can move from one Elements course into the next if they like.  In this course Romano-Lax will review all the basics and terms, from first-person to third-person, objective, subjective, and omniscient, and she’ll discuss how classic and contemporary works differ in their POV strategies. The course will also look most closely at what introductory approaches and texts leave out: subtleties of psychic distance, transitioning between points of view, and how POV creates character. Students will investigate what their default strategies are and why, and explore when and how to stretch their own POV muscles in new directions.

Ned Rozell’s Nonfiction Workshop is another Tuesday night offering, but he’ll be teaching at the Bear Gallery in Fairbanks.  In this workshop, students will respond to each other's works-in-progress (10 pages or less distributed a week in advance) under the guidance of Rozell, one of Alaska’s best-known science writers. They'll also discuss anthologized non-fiction excerpts, focusing on the craft and intent of each piece, and they'll identify the non-fiction techniques and determine whether they are serving or inhibiting the selection's overall design.

Anchorage nonfiction enthusiasts have an intense weekend option with Leslie Hsu Oh’s Truth or Dare: Nonfiction Techniques beginning Friday evening, Oct. 7, and wrapping up on Sunday, Oct. 9.   Accomplished nonfiction writer Hsu Oh will guide writers of creative non-fiction through some of the tough and controversial calls about what to say and how to say it. In this workshop, they’ll find out how to handle techniques that can get you in trouble as you experiment with memoir, profile, literary journalism, and other hybrids such as the lyric or mosaic essay.  Formerly of Eagle River, Hsu Oh will be traveling back from Washington, DC for this weekend workshop.

In celebration of Alaska Book Week, we’re offering two “writing life” special topics courses on Saturday, Oct. 15.  In the morning, well-published writer Claire Rudolf Murphy of Spokane, WA, on faculty with Hamline University, presents Writing as a Contact Sport, a workshop to help writers reflect on their writing lives and develop ways to adjust their schedules, intention, commitment, support and focus. Through assessments, free writing exercises, and discussion, participants will process and discern their writing life in the areas of focus, discipline, adaptability, being present in the moment, and the push and pull of fear and desire.   

In the afternoon, Melinda Moustakis, on faculty at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, will lead Writing and the Creative Spark, a generative writing session in which students will look at three different ways to spark creativity in their writing by reading published pieces in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry and then using them as inspiration for writing prompts. Winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award in Short Fiction, Moustakis will help students look at ways to re-imagine point of view, memories, and everyday objects.

For poets, Susanna Mishler is teaching a workshop called Poetry Toolbox: Lines and Tropes on four Saturday afternoons beginning Oct. 22.   In this workshop students will look at some of their tools as poets - the line and the trope. The emphasis will be on trying new things and an appreciation as readers for the tactics at play in a poem. Over the course of the workshop students will build a small 'dictionary' of poetic strategies and examples for all to take home and use. This workshop is for poets looking to hone skills and try out new modes of writing, though ambitious beginners are also welcome.

Last but decidedly not least, acclaimed author David Vann returns to Anchorage for a special topics course that explores the divided protagonist, style, and the use of landscape.  Study with a modern master of craft in Fiction with David Vann on Friday afternoon, Oct. 28 – and trust us, this is worth taking a few hours off work.  Advance readings by William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx, Flannery O'Connor, Marilyn Robinson, and Vladimir Nabokov will be provided. 

So don't delay:  register today.  We keep our courses small, and some do fill quickly.

Ela: 49 Writers Weekly Round-up

We’re hearing rumors of sunshine in Anchorage this weekend, but even if it’s pouring down rain we’d love for you to stop by our WYAK Write Young Alaska booth at the Spenard Farmers Market on Saturday, Aug. 27 from 9 am to 2 pm at the corner of Spenard and 26^th Ave.  Our lovely teen liaison volunteer Hillary Walker has arranged freebies, cookies, and a drawing for a fun prize.  Come see all the excitement we have planned at WYAK, from a new young writers group starting in October at Teen Underground to a free Jumpstart Your Writing workshop.  And did we mention the Zombies Invade Alaska contest deadline has been extended to Sept. 9?  Entries are coming in from as far away as Nome, and we want to make sure all you young writers have a shot at the prize.

We know you’re primed for our Crosscurrents event this Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. when New York Times bestseller author Dani Shapiro joins Sherry Simpson for “Memoir Writing: Exposure and Betrayal” onstage at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Auditorium.  And don’t forget the no-host “Goodbye Summer” after-party for 49 Writers members and volunteers at Sullivan’s Steakhouse bar from 8:30-10 pm that same evening.  Not a member or volunteer?  We’d love to have you sign up.  Visit www.49writingcenter.org and follow the links under “Get Involved” to join the fun.  While the party has no host, the Crosscurrents event is sponsored by the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Bookstore and the Copper Whale Inn.

"Goodbye, summer and hello, fall" means that registration for the 49 Writers fall term is now open, with a great line-up of courses includingTruth or Dare, Writing as a Contact Sport, Poetry Toolbox, Writing and the Creative Spark, Perspectives and Viewpoints, and Time in Narration. Space is limited, so don’t delay – sign up today.

Want a sneak preview of our 49 Writers Café?  Come to the Out North Revealing Party and Fundraiser on Sept. 8 from 5:30-8 pm.  $35 admission includes food, beer, wine, and entertainment… and believe it or not, we’re part of the entertainment!  We’re planning our official café grand opening – no charge for that – with an Open Mic event on Sept. 30.

Plans – and donations (thank you!) for Alaska Book Week Oct. 8-15 keep rolling in.  Check out the pages  to find out how authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, book clubs, and readers plan to celebrate Alaska Books during that week, and while you’re there, fill out our quick form so we can add your plans to our pages.  We’ve also added a link for you to request our free pdf poster to print and distribute, plus free bookmarks while they last (bookmarks will be mailed mid-September to early October).

Today, Friday August 26 at 4pm, Katie Manglesdorf will present Champion of Alaskan Huskies. Fireside Books, 720 S Alaska St, Palmer.

On Sunday, August 28 at 4pm, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Dirda will present "Reading Matters: How Books Can Change Your Life;" Wilda Marston Theater, Loussac Library. Free and open to the public.

On Tuesday, August 30 at 7.30pm, Denali Education Center's Community Series presents an evening of readings from the new anthology "Permanent Vacation: 20 Writers on Work and Life in Our National Parks:" with three authors representing Alaska: Tom Walker, Jeremy Pataky and Christine Byl. The book will be available and the writers will be willing to sign copies. Call 907 683 2597 for more information.

A reminder "for those who still think it's summer:" the September 1 deadline is fast approaching for the Alaska State Council on the Arts' Governor's Awards for the Arts and Humanities nominations (applications for Arts awards; applications for Humanities awards); the Connie Boochever Individual Artist Fellowship Deadline (for visual and media emerging artists this year), and for Career Opportunity Grants, Community Arts Development Grants, Workshop Grants, Helen Walker Presenting/Touring Grants, Master Artist and Apprentice Grants Application deadlines.

Next Friday, September 2, 6-10pm, Carmel Nelson will be at Barnes and Noble, 200 E. Northern Lights, Anchorage, to speak and to sign copies of The Food Allergy Cookbook.

KidsTheseDays.org is on the hunt for new bloggers. They’re open to themes and subjects, but Sarah Gonzales would especially love to have a foodie blog “by someone who makes delicious and healthy meals for their families and wants to write about it each week and share a recipe.” She’d also love to add an adult man’s voice. (Dad? Grandpa?) They’re open to other ideas well. Pay is $25 per blog, one post per week of 500-700 words, plus one or two photos. Check out their current bloggers, Erin Kirkland and “Patrick on the Edge” (a senior writing about high school) for ideas and format.

Anchorage essayist and author Bill Sherwonit will teach a 12-week nature and travel-writing class beginning September 22, in the Sierra Club office downtown. 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 and travel writers, past and present. The cost is $240. To sign up for this Thursday night class (7-9.30pm), or for more information, contact Sherwonit at 907 245 0283 or akgriz@hotmail.com Further information about the teacher is also available at www.billsherwonit.alaskawriters.com

Libraryjournal.com columnist Barbara Hoffert perused all the novels forthcoming for February 2012 and chose to highlight not one but two Alaska authors among only five special picks, pointing out that those authors – Eowyn Ivey (The Snow Child, Reagan Arthur Books) and Andromeda Romano-Lax (The Detour, Soho Press) happen to know each other, thanks to their connection via the 49 Alaska Writing Center, specifically mentioned in her article. Of Ivey’s debut novel, Hoffert writes: “I was already intrigued by this book after learning that galleys would be available at BEA and ALA—pretty impressive for a first novel that’s not a slash-and-dash thriller. Then I chatted with the publicist, who reported that it’s fresh and magical and the reason why we all in our various ways go into this book business.” Of Romano-Lax’s second novel, Hoffert writes: “The book is no (inappropriately) jolly picaresque; Romano-Lax, author of the well-received The Spanish Bow, keeps the palette just dark enough to remind us of the terror that is there—and the terror that’s to come. Nicely paced, brisk with dialog, and lyric at the right moment, this would be great for book clubs.”

The Delmarva Review has launched a new short story contest, with three cash prizes, and is seeking submissions. First prize, $500 cash and publication in The Delmarva Review in 2012. Second place wins $200; third place wins $100.

The contest seeks evocative, powerful literary fiction that exemplifies great storytelling and appeals to a wide literary audience. New, previously unpublished stories, from 2,500-5,000 words, will be considered from September 1 to November 1, 2011. The judge, to remain anonymous until the contest concludes, is an award-winning author and writing instructor.

See the Delmarva Review website for additional information on the Contest, or send email to: contest@delmarvareview.com, or write: Contest, The Delmarva Review, PO BOX 544, St Michaels, MD 21663.

Congratulations to Sharon Randolph of Sitka, whose first novel, The DiMensioner's Revenge, is now out and available through Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Sitka writer Tele Aadsen is looking for Sitka authors to interview for her blog for Alaska Book Week. Check out her blog for more about her and her writing.

Andromeda: Betrayals in the Name of Art -- Thoughts on Dani Shapiro's Upcoming Aug 31 Crosscurrents Event

When people have heard that Anchorage was lucky enough to get bestselling novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro to come to town (Aug. 31, 7 pm, Anchorage Museum), several friends volunteered that Shapiro's Slow Motion was one of their all-time favorite memoirs. If that's not a strong selling point for hearing Shapiro talk about the perils of the memoir, including writing about people you love, then I don't know what is. Shapiro is known as well for the memoir Devotion, described by Publishers Weekly as "absorbing, intimate, direct and profound."

But it was Shapiro's novel, Black and White, that I put on my own reading list this summer. Though it's fiction, it captures a lot of the same memoirist's questions about how we turn life into art, and what effect that alchemy has on the people around us. In the 2007 novel, Claire Brodeur has been out of contact with her mother, a famous photographer named Ruth, for 14 years. When Ruth is near death, Claire is compelled to return to her Manhattan roots and the facts of their alienation: from the age of 3 to 14, Claire was the very recognizable subject of a disturbing series of celebrated nude portraits. Now living a reclusive life in Maine with her husband and young daughter, Claire travels to New York City to face her mother, as well as the memories of the past that will inevitably come to the surface.

Most of the novel is told in these flashbacks, which are both realistic and chilling, as they force us to confront questions difficult for any artist (writers included): when are we crossing the line in our use of others as material? Do we, in fact, know what we are doing, or are we so tempted by the promise of making something beautiful or meaningful that we become blinded to our subjects' vulnerability? I've felt that question roil around my gut on many occasions, as a journalist, as an essayist, and as a novelist -- and even on the rare occasions when I've posted photos of my children online, or let them be included in books or newspaper articles. Shapiro draws no clear lines here, despite the title's apt allusion to both photography and ethics. Part of my pleasure in reading the novel came in recognizing that Shapiro was using a question that she has had to ask herself, not only as an inventor of fictional worlds, but closer to home, as a practitioner of that other genre, nonfiction.

I expect she'll explore some of these thoughts, as they inform many of her works, next week. I can't wait -- and I'm grateful to the efforts of Deb, moderator Sherry Simpson, and many great 49 writers volunteers who are putting this event together. Please don't miss it.

Andromeda/Your Turn: Why we read, do we need critics, and Michael Dirda's Sunday visit to Loussac Library

It's been a good long time since we had a highly interactive post with lots of comments (that's summer for you), and perhaps a rainy, autumnal day will give us this chance. But first, a reason for this discussion: Pulitzer prize-winning Washington Post literary critic Michael Dirda will be at Loussac Library this Sunday at 4 pm, giving a talk, "READING MATTERS: How Books Can Change Your Life," part of the library's 25th anniversary celebration.

Dirda has written many books about his own reading life, including a memoir about his youth, An Open Book. According to Publishers Weekly, Dirda grew up in the Midwest as the only boy of four children. "He grew up in a blue-collar family with a 'worried' mother and a father who 'hated his lot in life with every particle of his moody, dissatisfied soul.' To escape from home life and his own 'dissatisfied and restless' feelings, the young Dirda sought solace in books, thus beginning a lifelong literary affair of unwavering intensity and curiosity."

Dirda's favorite authors, according to archived online discussions at the Washington Post, are "Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell and Jack Vancen," a mix of the intellectual and the humorous, plotty writers and high stylists. In response to a reader who wondered whether Dirda admired stylists too much as a book reviewer, Dirda responded, "I try to bear all the school-based aspects of reading in mind--theme, character, plot, etc. But style is the one that matters most to me, followed by wit and humor. In nonfiction I look for original scholarship, and really don't care for the kind of potted stuff that makes the best seller list (e.g. How the Irish Saved Civlization). I'd rather read the scholars who are doing the real work. But this is me. I don't say I'm right or wrong. I am, in some sense, an esthete, and I read for pleasure -- my pleasure."

That's just enough to give us a taste of Dirda's taste, with much more to come Sunday, I'm sure. Now I'd like to ask you two questions: Why do you read? Escapism, entertainment, the chance to experience other lives or learn about the wider world? And, in honor of Dirda's visit: What do you think about the role of book reviews today? (With the folding of so many newspaper review sections, do you still seek out reviews? Prefer reader-style Amazon or Goodreads reviews to professional ones? Does it matter more or less on the local level? Do you read the reviews before or after you read the book?)

Chime in -- and whether or not we hear from you, I hope you find time to help celebrate Loussac's 25th anniversary.

Pertinent to this discussion, Sara Juday just shared this Poets & Writers article, "Back from the Dead: The State of Book Reviewing." Looks long and thoughtful, and I do hope it's hopeful. Good stuff about critics and book reviewing in the P&W "related reading" sidebar as well.

Writer as Wilderness Ranger: Guest Post by Marybeth Holleman

I’ve always had a secret desire to be a forest ranger. Maybe it was reading about Edward Abbey out there in his fire tower; maybe it was listening to fireside chats on family camping trips in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but it seems like such a divine life, spending your days out on the trails and mountains and waterways, doing for work what I do for fun. So when I learned about the Voices of the Wilderness artist residency in the Tongass National Forest, I nearly swooned.

I’ve been to enough residencies to know the drill: you get yourself there, and they put you up in a quiet, often remote space where you’re left alone to do your art. But this residency, said the announcement, had a twist. Rather than holing up in some cabin, the artist is in full immersion. Paired with a wilderness ranger, she spends a week kayaking, camping, assisting in ranger duties, soaking up the place and (oh, yes) creating. In return, the artist donates one piece of art, which they’ll use in an exhibit for the 50^th anniversary of the Wilderness Act.

What could be more perfect? And so in mid-July I found myself in the Tracy Arm Fords Terror Wilderness (TAFT for short), midway between Juneau and Petersburg, shadowing wilderness rangers. As an added bonus, another artist joined me, Washington, D.C.-based photographer Irene Owsley. 

The residency started with a frenetic day of assigning field work duties to six rangers, reviewing safety regulations, pulling together gear, and coordinating a marathon grocery trip. Then we piled everything into a small boat and motored to their base camp on Little Harbor Island in Holkham Bay.

Arriving in the slant light of evening, I was struck by contrast: four hours earlier I’d been standing in the parking lot of Fred Meyer’s, and now I was standing on a white shell beach, surrounded by waters that mirrored rocky spires and islands, and were punctuated by the brilliant sculptures from calving glaciers. The noise of traffic was replaced with a chorus of whale spouts coming from every direction, echoing off steep mountainsides.

As if they could read our minds, the rangers gave Irene and me our first instructions: you go do your art, we’ll unload the boats. Irene set up her tripod and I walked the beaches and wrote in my journal until all our gear was on the beach and dinner was served. Then one of the rangers and I took an evening paddle around Round Island.

So the week began, a week full of such wilderness adventure and wildlife encounters that, even though I’ve camped and kayaked many places along Alaska’s astonishing coastline, I’m left fumbling for words to describe it all.

Don’t worry, I won’t duck and cover under the writer cop-out of “indescribable.” Suffice to say, my essay will take some time. I’ll just keep in mind how to get there: slowly, as if by kayak, one stroke at a time.

That’s how rangers patrol this wilderness: by kayak. But since both Tracy and Endicott Arms, the two narrow and deep fjords at the heart of this wilderness, are over 30 miles long each, there’s also a bit of hitchhiking involved.

We spent a few days in Holkham, paddling around islands and along iceberg-studded Tracy Bar, all the time serenaded by whale song. Then, early one morning, as soft rain stippled the water, we paddled out to meet the M.V. Sikumi. They lifted our kayaks onto their boat and invited us inside, where we were met by a group of warm, dry, clean tourists.

While the Sikumi motored slowly up Tracy Arm between increasingly towering walls of granite, rangers Sean Rielly and Solan Jensen gave something like that fireside chat—a fjord-side chat. And they fielded questions, everything from “How is climate change affecting this wilderness?” to “What do you eat when you’re out here?”

After a few hours onboard, we were deposited once more in our kayaks, and paddled off to our campsite, which, when Sean told me that’s where we’d camp, I laughed, thinking he was joking: the mound of rock looked no different than the rest of the steep-sided fjord, except it was a little less steep. I soon learned how to go from sitting in my kayak among an ice floe directly to rock climbing.

Throughout the week, the focus was on the wilderness itself, on what wilderness means and why we humans need it. Sitting on glacier-scoured rock, the roar of freshwater tumbling to the sea, I watched a harbor seal twirl and dive beneath teal-blue water, fishing at the waterfall’s plunge. The answers were apparent.

As with any adventure, there are treasures you don’t expect. I now have the potential fulfillment of another desire: to collaborate with a visual artist. By day three, Irene and I were conspiring on several collaborations.

Back in Juneau, after his son Atagan had generously given us a tour of his treasure cave along Auk Bay beach, Wilderness Crew Leader Kevin Hood asked how the week had gone for me.

“You know those scratches in the rock, the ones you say were left by retreating glaciers?” I asked. “Well, I think they were left by people who didn’t want to leave.”


Photos, from top:  The author hard at work at Tracy Bar; South Sawyer Glacier; Solan Jensen and the author paddling to Tracy Bar; Room with a View; Round Island in Holkham Bay.

 Marybeth Holleman is author of The Heart of the Sound and co-author of Crosscurrents North. New work is forthcoming in AQR, ActionLine, Ice Floe 11, and now online at Literary Mama.  She'll be reading her piece from the fall issue of AQR at the November 4 First Friday at Jitters.  More at www.marybethholleman.com.

Irene Owsley specializes in the outdoors and travel, particularly northern regions.  Her work has appeared in such magazines as Canoe & Kayak, Sierra, National Parks, Earthwatch, and Natural History and in publications of The National Forest Foundation, Wilderness Society, Potomac Conservancy and Natural Resources Defense Council.  Currently, she is shooting the wild areas of metropolitan Washington, DC, particularly along the Potomac River.  Owsley has exhibited her work throughout metro Washington, DC and has been profiled in Rangefinder, Photographer’s Forum, and Nikon World magazine.

Liz Meredith interviews Tom Sexton: I Think Again of Those Ancient Chinese Poets

In late May, the New York Times reviewed former Alaska poet laureate Tom Sexton's twelfth book  I Think Again of Those Ancient Chinese Poets. In the article, writer Dana Jennings describes Sexton as "another modern monk seeking refuge in Asian poems."  Honoring his years in Alaska, his life in Maine, where he spends every other summer, and his interest in Chinese poetry, the Times says Sexton is” an atavistic avatar of how to look hard yet write simply.”

You were Alaska's poet laureate from 1995-2000. I've always wanted to know: How does one 

become a poet laureate? What are the duties?

The poet laureate was recommended to the State Arts Council by the former laureates and approved by the legislature until 2000, when it was changed to state writer.  I was the last laureate chosen in the traditional way. .. There were no designated duties when I was poet laureate.

So last spring, you find out the New York Times is mentioning your work. How exciting! What was that day like?

I found out about the New York Times review when I was at the Massachusetts Poetry Festival. I was chosen to open the Festival, so I was already walking on air when I found out about the review.

Which poem in this book are you most proud of? Can you give us a few lines of it, and explain what inspired it?

I’m most proud of “Snow.”  I feel it’s a perfect fusion of form and content. All of the elements work together. To me, the rhyme scheme and sound patterns are flawless. The Hudson Review used “Snow” for its Christmas gift to subscribers last year.

Snow

Even though it’s still Fall, a dense-wind

driven snow has been falling since dawn.

It rises and falls like the wings of a swan,

an image from a fairy tale that begins:

Once upon, but I’m too old for that now,

so I watch it falling beyond my window.

When it slows, I go out to see how deep

it is. It’s as light as down, as light as sleep.

So much of your writing is about Alaskan wildlife. Imagine that you had remained in Massachusetts instead of moving to Alaska forty years ago. What do you think your poems would be about?

If I had stayed in Massachusetts, my poetry would most likely be more urban, but even as a child I was drawn to nature. I do have three books about growing up in a mill town, so many of my poems are not about either nature or Alaska.

What advice do you have for the aspiring poets of tomorrow, who are often told that there's no market for or money in poetry?

I was very fortunate when the University of Alaska offered me a position way back in 1970. At the time, I had no idea what I was going to do. When my mortgage was paid off and I had enough money to maintain a modest lifestyle, I retired so I could spend my time writing. I have a very understanding wife. I guess my advice is don’t make money or fame your objective. Focus on your writing. My goal is to write one poem that will last.

Tom Sexton’s collection of poems set in his hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts titled Bridge Street at Dusk will be published next year by Loom Press.

Ela: 49 Writers Weekly Round-up

Congratulations to Paula Bryner, winner of our Third Annual “Ode to a Dead Salmon” contest.  For her splendid effort in “The Horror: A Tale of Dismemberment,” Paula will soon be proudly sporting a Ray Troll  t-shirt.  Thanks to judges Dana Stabenow and Sherry Simpson for helping us narrow the field to the best of the truly bad writing, and to all 121 of you who exercised your civic duty in choosing the best of the worst.  By the way, Paula is also our Reading and Craft Talk coordinator; writers who’d like to meet up with an audience and sign books should contact Paula at paulabryner@gci.net.  She promises not to accost you with any dismemberment tales.

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, Aug. 31 at 7 p.m. when New York Times bestseller author Dani Shapiro (Devotion, Black and White, Slow Motion) joins Sherry Simpson (The Accidental Explorer, The Way Winter Comes) for a 49 Writers Crosscurrents onstage conversation about the truths and misconceptions that surround memoir writing.  Can a rich, dramatic story be paralyzing in its telling?  If the writer leaves something out, is she being evasive?  What is the writer’s responsibility in truth and fact versus memory? A question and answer session and book-signing will follow.  “Memoir Writing: Exposure and Betrayal” will be onstage at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Auditorium.  There is no charge for 49 Writers and museum members; a $5 donation is suggested for non-members. Co-sponsored by the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Bookstore and the Copper Whale Inn.

Speaking of Dani, we do have one spot open for the 49 Writers Tutka Bay Retreat where she’s the featured author.  If you’re interested, email 49writers@gmail.com by Aug. 24.

With the excitement of school starting up, it’s time to think writing workshops and classes.  Registration for the 49 Writers fall term is now open, with a great line-up of courses taught by Andromeda Romano-Lax, Ned Rozell (in Fairbanks, co-sponsored by the Fairbanks Arts Association), Leslie Hsu Oh, Susanna Mishler, Claire Rudolf Murphy, Melinda Moustakis, and David Vann.  With intriguing titles like Truth or Dare, Writing as a Contact Sport, Poetry Toolbox, and Time in Narration, who can resist? Space is limited, so don’t delay – sign up today.

If you’re on Facebook, please go there (right now!) and like us at WYAK, our Write Young Alaska initiative.  While you’re at it, take our WYAK survey by August 31 for a chance to win an autographed copy of Dark Song, the latest novel by popular YA writer Gail Giles.  Then tell five of your closest 20-and under friends to do the same.

Did we mention the WYAK Zombie Writing Contest  for young writers that begins Monday, August 15, with entries due by September 2?  The winner nabs a signed copy of Sean Schubert’s Infection. And for still more WYAK action, check us out at the Spenard Farmers Market on Aug. 27.  We’ll be there from 9 am to 2 pm with homemade cookies and other goodies, including a drawing for a cool prize.

Activities planned for Alaska Book Week Oct. 8-15 keep rolling in.  Check out the pages at www.alaskabookweek.com to find out how authors, publishers, booksellers, librarians, teachers, book clubs, and readers plan to celebrate Alaska Books during that week, and while you’re there, fill out our quick form so we can add your plans to our pages.

A sad farewell to our fabulous summer intern Kayla Beth Moore, who took care of so many 49 Writers projects that we can’t begin to name them.  With much gratitude and many hopes that she’ll return, we wish Kayla Beth a stellar senior year.

On Saturday August 20 at 1pm, the Pulpwood Queens Book Group will present a storytime at Barnes and Noble, 200 E. Northern Lights, Anchorage.

On Tuesday August 23 at 7pm, the Anchor Park Reading Group will meet at Barnes and Noble, 200 E. Northern Lights, Anchorage. This month's book is The Social Animal by David Brooks.

On Friday, August 26 at 4pm, Katie Manglesdorf will be available to sign copies of her book, Champion of Alaskan Huskies, a biography of Joe Redington Sr., the "Father of the Iditarod." Fireside Books, Palmer.

Mike Kincaid: Where's the bathroom?

Looking up from scribbling in a copy of Alaska Justice, I notice a somewhat memorable face patiently waiting her turn in the line. I can’t quite place her, but the freckles are unique.

It’s a good evening for a book signing in the small town of Rathdrum, Idaho. The store owners are excellent hosts and have laid out a nice selection of treats, enticing shoppers to hang around and purchase books. Self-publishing requires self-promotion to sell books and book signings are a big part of that for me. Sometimes they go wonderfully, like this evening promises. Sometimes signings can be a bust. With either outcome, the experience alone is often worth the effort and I’ve met some very interesting people.

“Hi, do you remember me?” The smiling 50-something lady asks, handing me a book to sign. I admit she looks familiar. She surprises me with her next statement: “You arrested my husband in Glennallen, back in the 80’s.”

Mumbling somewhat of an apology, I search my mental Rolodex, trying to place her and her law-breaking husband.

“It’s okay, he deserved it,” the freckle-faced lady says with a smile, then adds: “He was a real jerk. Here, I’d like you to meet my new husband.”

“Freckles” and her friendly husband buy a couple of books and we have an enjoyable discussion about Alaska, the way it was, way back when.

No matter in what part of the country, I often find an Alaska connection at book signings. It can be as simple as the book-purchaser having toured Alaska’s road system, a lady whose daughter teaches in the village of Tuluksak, or from a recent signing in Wisconsin, a Kotzebue resident comparing stories about renegades in the Bush. Occasionally, the connection is much more intense, like the man in Reno last winter who mentioned while I was signing his book that he had owned a couple of Helio Courier airplanes like the ones portrayed in Alaska Justice. It got weird when he relayed that the last one he owned was sold to a pilot in Alaska and it had crashed near Fairbanks. We both were somewhat shell-shocked when we found that, as a trooper, I’d pulled the buyer from the smoldering wreckage and the poor guy died in my arms. Small world, indeed.

As an unknown author, for me successful book-signings aren’t just a matter of showing up with boxes of books. Good days involve happy shoppers buying lots of books, but it doesn’t always go that way—like on one dark, raining night in Spokane, Washington. I’d accepted a short-notice to sign books on a Tuesday evening, without the chance for advance promotion. The room the bookstore assigned me had just been used by a group whose tastes were way on the other end of the spectrum from those who might enjoy reading an Alaskan adventure. The scenario was the perfect formula for a lonely night, terminating in hauling boxes of books back into the drizzle. The highlight of the event was helping an old-timer find the eyeglasses he’d lost when rushing into the store to escape the nasty weather. He thanked me for the help, shared a book’s worth of stories about his life as a young man in Alaska, and left without buying a book.

I’ve signed books at small and large bookstores, after giving presentations to groups about Alaska and at special events—airshows are my specialty (my books include lots of flying and I also write non-fiction aviation material). Although the number of books sold varies greatly per event, rather than regret the bad signings, I kick myself for turning one down. I was offered two free tickets on an Inside Passage cruise with the only obligation of giving two talks a day and signing books. It was a dumb move to pass on that and I still cringe whenever I see a commercial with smiley tourists dining on King Crab while nearby glaciers calve into the sea.

Preparation is the key for successful book signings and the media has usually obliged me when I’ve requested interviews in advance of an event. I’ve also experimented with give-aways—from caps to a drawing for a seaplane flight—and, although pricey, they get folks in the buying mood and the buzz passed about my books. For example, the first person who sends me an email after reading this blog, requesting a copy of Alaska & Beyond, gets it free and signed! (Email: mdkincaid@adventurousbooks.com).

Imagine a Friends of Animals member dropping in on an Alaskan hunting camp to convince hunters not to shoot those cute moose with the really big antlers—that’s what I think of a book signing without advance promo. Once, after a great story in the local paper and posters plastered in the front windows, the results of my book signing prompted a Borders store manager to gush that it was their most successful signing in their then two-year history. (Maybe it was their first?) I tried my luck again, this time without properly notifying the local citizenry. My thinking was I couldn’t lose, since it was during the Christmas rush and I was given a front-and-center table. Shoppers must have thought I was operating an informational kiosk, as not only were the book sales terrible, but the most common question was, “Where’s the bathroom?”

Here are a few tips I’ve developed in my still-rookie writing career for book signings: (1) don’t bother having a book signing without advance promo; (2) find your audience–if your book has theme of interest to special groups (mine are Alaskans, pilots, law-enforcement, and Alaska tourists), give talks to those folks, then sell books; (3) don’t turn a down a free cruise; (4) know where the bathroom is located.

Mike Kincaid was a city boy from the Lower 48 who accidently spent a 26-year vacation in Alaska, residing in Denali Park, Girdwood, King Salmon, Copper Center, Fairbanks, Bethel, Palmer and somewhere near Talkeetna. He survived an exciting career with the Alaska Department of Public Safety as a Trooper/Pilot with the majority of his time in the Bush. Mike now operates a seasonal seaplane business in which he is an instructor and Designated FAA Examiner. Mike writes for IDAHO Magazine and various aviation publications and continues the tell the story of the Alaska State Trooper in his Jack Blake adventure series.