One of my Christmas gifts from a good friend was a box of Palomino Blackwing 602 pencils (complete with extra erasers), the model I am assured has been the writing tool of choice for “many Oscar, Grammy, and Pulitzer Prize winners throughout the 20th Century.” Who knew it was only my choice of writing implement that […]
Frank Soos: Now What? (a bonus blog by the Alaska State Writer Laureate) Read More »
Each year, I spend the week between the winter holidays and New Year’s Eve reflecting on the year that is passing and preparing for the year that is coming up. I make sure that I take time to really consider the answers to the following questions: What do I want to let go of? What
Looking Forward to 2016! Read More »
Happy Holidays! Let’s hope inspiration will pour over all fellow writers. Let’s hope the coming year will be full of beautiful words. Let’s hope through the words beautiful worlds will reflect from the pages and websites like ours. Resolve To Write! There will be member’s only salon Resolve to Write events in January in Anchorage,
Weekly Roundup of Writing Opportunities for December 25 Read More »
The typewriter rested on top of a bookcase at chest height. The writer came to it in the early morning. Standing, he read the previous day’s work. He had stopped at a place in the story where he knew what would come next. Then he began again. Between every two words, he inserted extra space
Peter Porco, Guest Post – Ernest Hemingway: The Writer as O.C.D. Artist Read More »
Saturday night, a night that came early and stayed late, I attended a solstice potluck party. This particular party has been an on-going event since before I arrived in Fairbanks almost 30 years ago. When I attended that first time in 1986, the host was English teacher and literary salon keeper Madge Clark. Now the
Frank Soos: More Light Read More »
Away with the Bitterness Uncle’s sweet tooth had to be satisfied and each day he would fill his brown paper lunch bag with a peanut butter sandwich, always with wheat bread, and two peanut butter cups. My eleven-year-old eyes watched this ritual each day while eating the Life cereal he had prepared for me: a
AK Shorts: Away with the Bitterness by Jennifer L. Smith Read More »
When I lived in the Lower-48, solstice didn’t mean all that much to me or anyone else that I knew. But now that I live where the dawns of December come late and the sunsets come early, I’m exquisitely attuned to when that light/dark ratio will start to slide back towards brightness. For me, solstice
Bring Back the Light! Read More »
As the second wave of holidays approach, we slow down just a little bit to pick up speed with writers’ salons after New Year and very exciting workshops to follow in the coming months. Resolve To Write! There will be member’s only salon Resolve to Write events in January in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Homer, and Juneau.
Weekly Roundup of Writing Opportunities for December 18 Read More »
Writers tend to be a whiney lot. At least I have been in my time, particularly when it comes to the subject of publishers: they don’t appreciate me, they are too big, they are too small, they don’t promote my book, it goes on and on and on… The only time we truly love them
John Straley: You Need All The Friends You Can Get Read More »
The reality of a Fairbanks winter is setting in. It’s cold, around zero most every day this week at our house, and around minus 20 in town. There’s comfort in this hard windless cold, so solid a person feels he can lean against it. Not so the dark. Today there are fewer than four hours
Frank Soos: Down in the Hole Read More »
