The Montana weatherman promised near-high temperatures today. It’s mid-afternoon. If Miss Weather were right, I’d be inside the old ranch house, adjusting every fan to cool down the inside air. The clink and click of ice in my water glass might just block the sound of buzzing mosquitos. Thankfully, today, the weatherman is wrong. Rather …
Rich Chiappone’s new book, The Hunger of Crows, will be published in November and is available now for pre-order. For the long-time Alaska writer, it represents a distinct swerve from realism into a more commercial style of thriller, albeit with literary dimensions. Beginning three years ago, I started to make the same mid-life turn toward …
In 2015, JT Torres was teaching developmental writing at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. The prior two years, he had lived in Colorado and Georgia alone while his girlfriend finished nursing school in Florida. Torres’ university contract was scheduled to end in May of that year. His lover had committed to serve Alaska Regional Hospital for two …
Taking Flight: Written by JT Torris, Reviewed by Dan Branch Read More »
It’s going to rain in Juneau on Memorial Day. It will rain the entire weekend. That won’t stop our local Toyota dealer from offering holiday discounts on cars sales or prevent the Home Depo or Fred Meyers from advertising Memorial Day price cuts. Rain won’t discourage families who were quick enough to reserve a shelter …
This blogpost originally appeared, in a different version, in 2015. But I’ve retrieved and adapted it here because I just talked to my agent today about a novel I’ll be revising—dramatically—creating major POV and plot changes from at least the midpoint, an entire cascade of changes that promises to occupy me for two months, and …
POV and Revision: Lessons from Harper Lee By Andromeda Romano-Lax Read More »
I still haven’t taken a shower this rainy May morning. The coffee that I usually finish while it is still hot, has gone cold. Instead of making a new cup of Java, I stare out the window, watching heavy rain drops slam into a puddle on our driveway. Then I re-read “A Month Alone,” one …
Water Mask: New Nonfiction Book by Monica Devine, Reviewed by Dan Branch Read More »
Stampede In the Summer of 1980, when I was 29 and the love of my life was studying photography in Sweden, I got a call from a law school buddy named Dave Diver. It was winter when he called. Cold and windy in Bethel where I lived. Colder in Fairbanks, where he served the U.S. …
Stampede, A New Book About Alaska by Brian Castner Read More »
Keema Waterfield’s Inside Passage (Green Writers Press, forthcoming spring 2021) is a memoir chronicling her peripatetic childhood “chasing music with her twenty-year-old mother on the Alaskan folk festival circuit” while yearning for home. Kirkus Reviews called it “a wild remembrance that will keep readers engaged” and the late Sherry Simpson enthused, “heartbreaking but never …
Keema Waterfield’s Inside Passage; Andromeda Romano-Lax Interview of a Great New Writer Read More »
PROLONGED WINTER By Sondra Porter, Trapper Creek I am waiting, impatiently, six feet behind a man Who drones on, “Spring is early, won’t see another dump, Snow’s going fast, I’m taking my snow tires off.” Me? I am waiting to take my snow tires off I am waiting for clearer signs of spring For …
2021 Poetry Broadside Submission 30: PROLONGED WINTER By Sondra Porter, Trapper Creek Read More »
RUSTED LUMPS OF LUCK By Wendy Brooker, Wasilla Rusted lumps of luck dwell deep in horseshoe iron Welcome chance and charm
