We recently changed navigation and content on the 49 Writers website to make it easier for you to find the information you need. We’re open to suggestions for improvement, so feel free to comment. Some ideas came from a session at the Foraker Leadership Summit in April, which this year focused on communications and telling our stories. We’re always on the lookout for stories: if you have one to share about how 49 Writers has helped you as a writer, we’d love to hear from you!
You’ll find some new listings on the Writer Resources page. After Claire Morgan contacted us – she’s a researcher with the Open Education Database – we added her “150 Tools for Writers,” a project she recently completed to compile a comprehensive list of writers’ resources that includes everything from proper citation and grammar guides to organizational tools and legal help. Since we get requests now and then for information on editorial services, we’ve listed some editors who are current or former Alaskans. We’re not endorsing a particular business by listing it, just providing information – be sure to check references and testimonials. If you know of a good resource to share with other writers, just let us know.
Only one more week left to submit your proposals for fall classes – deadline June 15. Click here for more information.
On Saturday, June 8, 7pm, Libbie Martin will be the reader for the Fairbanks Arts Association’s June Literary Reading, part of the 2013 Literary Reading Series. She will read from her new book Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race. Bear Gallery, Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts, Pioneer Park, 2300 Airport Way, Fairbanks.
Tuesday, June 11, 12:30-2:30pm, UAA Campus Bookstore: Summer Author Series features Track & Treks with authors Cinthia Ritchie (Dolls Behaving Badly), Lizzie Newell (The Stud and the Sperm Thief), and James Misko (The Cut of Pride), who come together to discuss their books, life, and writing in Alaska.
June 13, 7pm, Venus Transit performs Via Mundi at Blue Hollomon Gallery (part of Spenard JazzFest, but always independent and always original). The lineup includes Brian Hutton who just won the F’Air Words competition in the fiction category. Curated by poet and essayist, Sandy Kleven (who happens to have won in nonfiction in F Magazine’s annual writing contest). (Editor: Congratulations to both!) Also with Gabriel Barnett, Elizabeth L Thompson, Peter Porco, Moss Ira, Melissa Wanamaker, Tamara Rothman, Corliss Kimmell. And special guest who include Christine Reichman, Patrick Minock and Matt Berman. The program begins with poetry and twists resulting a collaborative mix. JazzFest opens Friday, June 7, 5:30pm, at Hugi-Lewis Gallery on Northern Lights and Spenard.
Jeff Brady’s magnum opus on Skagway, Skagway, City of the New Century, has just been published by Lynn Canal Books. With 486 pages and over 350 photographs, this book represents 35 years of work by Brady, together with other writers and photographers, as well as historical photographs collected by the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park, the Skagway Museum, and many other institutions and collectors. Brady is a founding director of the North Words Writers Symposium that takes place in Skagway in early June. He will be donating proceeds from sales of his book to the Margaret Frans Brady fund, which provides support for arts and education programs and projects in Skagway and the northern part of Southeast Alaska.
Congratulations to 49 Writers’ “own” Deb Vanasse: Alaska Center for the Book has just selected her Lucy’s Dance to represent Alaska at the Pavilion of the States at the National Book Festival in Washington D.C. Each year, the Center for the Book creates a passport with which participants navigate the Pavilion of the States. The passport features a book from each state. For AK in fall 2013, Lucy’s Dance is what it will be.
Four poems by Alaska writers have been selected for permanent placement (late this summer or early fall) in state parks in Ketchikan and Fairbanks as part of the statewide Poetry in Place initiative. Poems by Emily Wall and Ernestine Hayes will be installed at Totem Bight State Park in Ketchikan and poems by Frank Soos and the late John Haines will be installed in the Chena River State Recreation Area near Fairbanks.
Lucian Childs’ short story “Carbon Copies” is now out in Prism Review, Issue #15. The story was the winner of their 2103 Fiction award.
Readers needed! This month’s Poetry Parley, coming up Wednesday June 20, will feature Czeslaw Milosz and local poet David Cheezem of Fireside Books. If you’d like to read one or several poems by Milosz, please contact poetryparley@gmail.com asap.
The Kachemak Bay Writers Conference is coming up next weekend. Registration is still open, but even if you’re not going, if you’re in Homer at all you should consider attending the Festival of Readings, free and open to the public every night of the conference. Saturday June 15th, 8pm is the keynote, with poet and essayist Naomi Shihab Nye (limited seating; doors open 7.30). Sunday June 16, 7:30pm at Alice’s Champagne Palace will feature John Daniel, Sean Hill, Sara Loewen, Melinda Moustakis, Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, Eva Saulitis, and Sherry Simpson. Monday June 17, 7:30pm at Lands End Resort will feature Rich Chiappone, Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Ann Hood, Nancy Lord, Karen McElmurray, Lee Ann Roripaugh, Peggy Shumaker, and Deb Vanasse. Book signings will follow all readings.
Tuesday, June 18, 7pm, Jitters Coffee House, Eagle River: the Alaska Writers Guild June program features Cherilynn Stone talking about Social Networking and Using the Internet to Promote Your Writing. Cherilynn taught a class for us on this topic in spring 2012 which was well-received – don’t miss this opportunity.