49 Writers Weekly Round-up

Happy New Year to one and all! We wish you a creative twelve months and look forward to announcing more work published by the growing list of successful Alaskan writers (at time of writing Eowyn Ivey’s The Snow Child is #22 on the New York Times paperback fiction best seller list). 49 Writers is here to support you in every way we can: with workshops and classes on the craft and business of writing; community events featuring Alaska writers and their books; literary gatherings for members, volunteers, and friends; our Facebook discussion group; and this very blog, which provides a platform for regular and guest bloggers as well as the opportunity to publish (Alaska Shorts) and ask questions (Writer Girl).


Registration for Spring 2013 is now open – we have a great lineup in Anchorage, Juneau, and Palmer, so be sure to sign up for the classes that interest you. Click here for more information and to register.


We are most grateful to everyone around the state who gave in response to our year-end appeal for financial gifts. Thank you, your donations help us to continue doing what we do to promote Alaska’s writers and to grow our literary community. We would particularly like to acknowledge the generous support of  Peggy Shumaker and Joe Usibelli, who continue to enrich the Alaska literary scene in so many ways. Please take the opportunity to express your appreciation to them whenever you can.


Coming up next week: on Friday, January 11, 7:00-9:00 pm, our annual Resolve to Write event in Anchorage for members and volunteers. Remember to RSVP to your invitation! If you live outside the area and want to organize an event, let us know and we can put you in touch with our membership there.


If you are of a scientific bent (and even if you’re just curious), don’t miss the writers panel on Sunday, January 20, 2:00-4:00 pm organized as part of the Alaska Marine Science Symposium. The panel takes place in the Endeavour Room at the Hotel Captain Cook. Writing Science Creatively: what inquiring minds want to know: How can you begin, or continue, writing creatively about science? How do you translate scientific facts and journal articles into engaging and even poetic language and your “scientific voice” into a more personal one? Join this panel discussion by writers whose science writing spans the spectrum from outreach for science institutions and interpretation of natural resources on public lands to creative non-fiction, novels, and poetry. You will receive practical writing advice, a reading list, ideas for places to publish, and an opportunity to participate in a new Alaska science writing blog. Panel members: Sherry Simpson, Nancy Lord, and Andromeda Romano-Lax (faculty members, UAA Creative Writing and Literary Arts Program); and Judith Connor (Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute). Sponsored by: COSEE-Alaska, North Pacific Research Board, Alaska Ocean Observing System, UAA CWLA Program, and 49 Writers. 


On Wednesday, January 23, 7:00 pm, the science theme continues with Bill Streever’s Reading & Craft Talk at Great Harvest Bread Company. Join us for Story Telling and Science: Writing about All Things Cool and All Things Hot. Dr. Bill Streever’s last book, Cold, was a national bestseller. His new book, Heat, picks up where Cold left off, taking readers from fever to fire to thermonuclear weapons to the quart-gluon soups that form at seven trillion degrees.


The Alaska Native Playwrights Project is gathering January 3 – 12. Here is the schedule of readings for the 2012 Cohort at the Athabascan Ceremonial  House (ANHC) 8800 Heritage Center Drive:

• Thursday, Jan 3 (7–9 pm) Everyone Reading – “Something in the Living Room” (Kavelina Torres) (We’re a little too late for this one.)
• Friday, Jan 4 (7–9 pm) Everyone Reading – “Emancipation of Innocence (Robin
• Lovelace-Smith) & “The Raven and the Crow” (Richard Perry)
• Saturday, Jan 5 (7–10 pm) Everyone Reading – “Absent Fathers” (Ernestine Hayes) & “River of Blood” (Ed Bourgeois)
• Sunday, Jan 6 (5–8 pm) Everyone Reading – “The Bone Song” (Ethan Petticrew) & “Our Voices Will Be Heard” (Vera Starbard)

At Out North Theatre, DeBarr and Primrose:

• Thursday, Jan 10 (6–9 pm)  Everyone Reading – “The Hidden People” (Natalia LaMont
• Akerlund) & “Microaggression” (Marleah LaBelle)
• Friday, Jan 11 (6–9 pm) Everyone Reading – “Camel’s Rock” (Lucas Rowley) & “Bad
• Characters” (LM Heitman Bruce)
• Saturday, Jan 12 (5–8 pm) Everyone Readings – “Wailuku River” (Lokomai’kai Lipscomb) &“To Stalk a Shaman” (Martha Jane Jack)

Cirque’s Winter Solstice issue is out.  Read it full text, on-line, and order a hard copy at www.cirquejournal.com.  This hefty issue includes work from 88 writers and 23 visual artists, from 16 states, 2 provinces, and France(!).  Even the most distant have links to Cirque’s North Pacific region.  Contributors include two former Writers Laureate and several whose work is being published for the first time. “High caliber writing, stunning visuals and dynamic editorial staff, make Cirque a jewel of a journal that should not be missed.”  Carey Taylor, M.A. This issue is available in a new lower cost format at $16.95.  It’s identical to the original format except for the use of matte interior pages. The original format is still available.  Find both on the Cirque page and “like” Cirque on FaceBook.

Amy Marshall of Craig invites you all to her January 6, 1:00 pm book release party
for The Fishing Widow. It’s going to
be on Facebook, on a Google+ Hangout, AND in Craig at Waterstreet Café. She
promises free downloads of the book, prizes, and more!

F Magazine seeks entries for its 3rd Annual Statewide Youth Art & Writing Competition – deadline January 20, 2013, click here for more information. This year’s winners will be published in a special issue of F Magazine, showcased at Out North Contemporary Art House, and the top two will go to Sitka Fine Arts Summer Camp! Creative teens in grades 7-12 are invited to submit work in a variety of categories of art and writing. The submissions are judged locally and 49 Writers will jury the writing entries. In March, Out North Contemporary Arts House in Anchorage will showcase the statewide winners of the competition with a reading of their work by experienced readers and actors and the entire event will be streamed online for students unable to attend. ASYAWC is supported, in part, by Out North and grants from the Alaska Humanities Foundation and the Alaska State Council on the Arts/National Endowment for the Arts.


Tele Aadsen has alerted us to the following publishing opportunity for women writers: “Author Cami Ostman is accepting submissions for an anthology about women, writing, and identity. There’s no pay but it’s another opportunity. Cami’s great to work with and will make sure that every accepted author gets a few copies. Worth checking out – I suspect we’ve all got something to say about our relationship with writing…”


Our thanks to Cinthia Ritchie for this news of Alaskan playwrights in New York: Erma Duricko and Blue Roses Theatre Company put out a call for plays by Alaskans, and the selections have been announced. There are a number of different reading programs containing our writers… they’re listed below. If you’re there, you know, go. If you’re not, you know, let friends who do live there know to go. Alaskans are bolded.


Not To Be Ignored – Monday – January 28 @ The Havoc
Careful What You Wish For by Judy Stadt
Love Me Tender by Linda Billington
Point of Departure by Judd Lear Silverman


Winter Shorts – Sunday – January 29 @ The Havoc
All Roses by Karen Eterovich
The Last Holdout by Judd Lear Silverman
The War of Virginia and Alabama by Dawson Moore
Tornado by Arlitia Jones
What Will Be Done by Richard Cottrelll


Blue Roses Celebrates Alaskan Playwrights – Monday – February 4 @ The Havoc
Better Than the Alternative by Mollie Ramos
Crook Book by Lucas Rowley
First Kiss by Tom Moran
From Afterlife by Carolyn Roesbery
Heart Poor by Dawson Moore
Hot Spot by Linda Billington
Interpretive Dance by Schatzie Schaefers
Just You and Me by Kyra Meyer
The Cigarette by Forrest Leo