Podcast

In 2018, Vered Mares and partners opened the Writer’s Block bookstore and café’ in Anchorage, Alaska. It quickly became a vital gathering space for writers and artists. Also since 2018, Katie Bausler has hosted this  49 Writers forum for exploration and discussion with writers and artists in these challenging and changing times. We’ve reached a last straw in

Environmental Historian and author Bathsheba DeMuth explores the past to better understand the present. As the COVID-19 pandemic settles in for the foreseeable future, the Brown University Professor  and host Katie Bausler look back to the flu pandemic of 1918, and infectious diseases brought by European explorers that devastated indigenous peoples going back hundreds of

Tired of division, strife and the feeling that half the country just doesn’t get it? Want more joy in your life? In the world? Then you might like to meet our first guest songwriter, Jackie Venson. Host Katie Bausler caught up with the Austin based guitarist and vocalist on her latest visit to Southeast Alaska.

Susan Orlean is best known for her books The Orchid Thief, Saturday Night, Rin Tin Tin, and most recently, The Library Book, published in October, 2018. Now out in paperback, it’s a story she was compelled to tell about the largest library fire in US history and how it renewed a lifelong love and appreciation

Author Annie Boochever on Fighter in Velvet Gloves: Alaska Civil Rights Hero Elizabeth Peratrovich. Boochever collaborated with this story of Elizabeth Peratrovich’s life for young readers with her son, Roy Peratrovich Jr. This highly recommended work arrives at a time when issues of race and racism are clearly unsettled.

When not spending time in endangered and beautiful places or teaching writing, Pam Houston lives with horses, goats and dogs in her cherished home of almost 30 years, an off the grid ranch in the high country of Colorado. In this episode, Pam tells host and producer Katie Bausler that it is metaphors that get her through

Beauty-of fauna, flora and most of all-place is part of everything she writes, says Joanna Lilley. The author of a short story collection and two books of poetry, Lilly grew up in the UK and lives in Whitehorse Yukon, Her first novel, Worry Stones, published in late 2018, is set in in Canada, Britain and the Scottish

49 Writers co-founder and author Andromeda Romano Lax has published her fourth novel, Plum Rains. Andromeda lives for a while in the places where her novels are set, for this one in Japan and Taiwan. The book takes place a decade from now and takes on several issues, including robots, immigration, privilege, and human connection.

State Writer Laureate Ernestine Hayes has spent a good part of her life bearing witness. The author of the American book award winning, Blonde Indian and the Tao of Raven, Hayes is known for bringing out the connections between all things. She is also a member of the faculty at the University of Alaska Southeast.