I’m not sure what happened to May. If anyone can round it up and bring it back this way, I’d appreciate it. So far I’ve only been able to catch glimpses of it fading fast in my rearview mirror.
One thing I did manage to catch was a great series of posts from featured author Brett Dillingham. One more goes up next week, and then it’s on to Dana Stabenow, 49 Writers featured author for June. In typical Dana fashion, she has written and submitted her posts already – I’m not telling how long ago she wrote them, but let’s just say she must be every editor’s dream. I’m also not giving up any spoilers – you’ll have to read along with the rest of us.
Three huge writing events hit Alaska in June: the Alaska Book Festival in Fairbanks, the Kachemak Bay Writers Conference in Homer, and the Last Frontier Theater Conference in Valdez. And they’re all at the same time. I understand this concept in box stores: Lowes builds next to Home Depot because traffic drifts from one to the other. But I must confess I don’t get it with writers’ events. I’d think writers, especially those from Outside, might benefit from these conferences being contiguous rather than overlapping. But what do I know?
At any rate, there’s a great line-up of authors at each of these events. In addition to special guests Willie Hensley and Brian Garfield, the Book Festival, themed “Historically Alaska,” features thirty writers. The event opens with an authors’ reception on Thursday, June 11, followed by Hensley’s address at the UAF Davis Concert Hall. I’d love to see an informal 49 Writers social event, maybe afterwards at the Pump House, as I know we’ve got lots of readers in Fairbanks, and not all of them will be at this year’s reception. Email me at debv@gci.net or leave a comment here if you’re interested. And look for me to get your ***free!!!*** 49 Writers pencil. All the cool writers have them.
The Kachemak Bay Conference opens June 12 with keynote speaker Li-Young Lee. On the faculty are eighteen writers, many of them Alaskan. Neither Andromeda or I can make KBC this year, but rumor has it our 49 Writer pencils will be out in force, so make sure you get one. And even though the pencils don’t work for jotting emails, we’d love some live reports from attendees.
The Last Frontier Theater Conference opens June 13. At last count, there were 28 distinguished literary and theatrical artists in the Last Frontier Play Lab. Sadly, the pencils won’t make it to Valdez this year, but again, we’d love a guest post or two on the conference.
Amid all this conferencing, make time to read our 49 Writers book club selection Tide, Feather, Snow by Miranda Weiss of Homer. We’re anticipating a lively online discussion at the end of June.
Every so often, Andromeda and I meet up, face to face, to remind ourselves that we’re real people behind all this electronic nonsense, and to talk about where we are with 49 Writers and where we’d like to be. We’re getting ready to meet again, and of course we’d love your input. How can we best serve you, as writers and readers? What would you like to see more of? Less of? New ideas? We’re open. Leave your comment here or email me at debv@gci.net.