To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from […]
Alaska Shorts: “Ascent of Mont Ventoux” by Petrarch Read More »
Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth Ethereal, bewitching, seductive – thus have reviewers praised Alaska author Eowyn Ivey’s best-selling debut novel The Snow Child. If that sounds like love, so too does the way Ivey’s book was conceived. In her day job at Fireside Books in Palmer, she came upon a children’s book retelling of the
From the Archives: Deb Vanasse: Je Ne Sais Quoi Read More »
The heat has finally settled. It is safe to come out of your homes, Alaskans. I, for one, was hiding in a room with all shades drawn, a box fan blowing faster than the propellers on a bush plane, and my feet in a mini fridge. With the cooler temperatures, let’s explore this week’s events.
Weekly Round Up of Alaska Writing News and Events Read More »
What an amazing time I had at the writers’ conference in Aspen, Colorado in 2002, studying with Ted Conover, a writer I’d admired for years,, who had so much to teach us. About that time, I remember…very little. And how exciting to have attended the Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, two times– or was it three?
From the Archives: Andromeda on Keeping (brief!) notes Read More »
Afaa Weaver Sincerity, then craft. Afaa Michael Weaver, a black man from Baltimore, comes at poetry that way. He’s a quiet teacher, given to listening. He speaks Chinese, practices Tai Chi and other martial arts, gives his students room to ponder what he calls an artist’s “geography.” He has published fourteen books of poetry. In
Linda Martin: Finding the Geography of Our Work: Post-conference workshop at Tutka Bay Read More »
CHAZ PULLED HIS mother’s Outback into the snowed-over parking lot and parked it under the Alaska Recreational Area sign, gaping through the windshield at the three bodies clad in snowmobile suits lying face down on the still-frozen surface of the lake. Another meth deal gone sideways? Maybe. The locals in the jacked-up school buses and
Alaska Shorts: “Special,” by Richard Chiappone Read More »
If you haven’t read Deb Vanasse’s book, What Every Author Should Know, you are missing out on tips you wished a more experienced author would share with you. Vanasse generously distills years of experience from publishing 16 books with six different presses into this easy-to-read “how to” publish, promote, and live the life of a
Leslie Hsu Oh interviews Deb Vanasse on What Every Author Should Know Read More »
I hope you have all returned home inspired from last weekend’s Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference. For those needing more inspiration, we still have lots going on at 49 Writers. On July 23 at 7 pm, we’ll be hosting a special Crosscurrents event at the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson to celebrate the launch of the Anchorage
Weekly Round-Up of Alaska Writing News and Events Read More »
You have to love wikiHow. Impressed by the abundance of metaphor in Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! and a handful of lines in a G.C. Waldrep’s “The Black Pickup Truck of Death is Driving Away,” I set out to discover what other writers had to say about figurative language, which is as intuitive as anything we do. Straight up, Google
From the Archives: Deb Vanasse on Metaphor, with All Due Respect Read More »
I was in the Homer Bookstore recently, buying a copy of Show and Tell by Phillip Lopate. I added to my purchase a box of notecards featuring rosemary, basil and dill that I found on a shelf honoring the Homer Farmer’s Market. Also on that shelf: a tempting children’s book called The Very Big Carrot,
Linda Martin: Symbiosis: Bookstore and Writers Read More »
