Mark your calendars now! Thanks to partnerships with Epicenter Press and Wrangell Mountains Center, we have been able to arrange for two additional Readings & Crafts Talks and an August Synergies event. On Tuesday, April 24, from 7-8:30 pm, Mary Albanese will talk about writing her memoir, Midnight Sun Arctic Moon, at Great Harvest Bread Company. In August, both poet Dan Beachy-Quick and visiting writer Justin Torres, who will be in Alaska to conduct writing workshops for Wrangell Mountains Center, will make a stop in Anchorage to participate in 49 Writers events. On Friday, August 3, 7-8:30 pm, Justin will give a reading and craft talk, and on Friday, August 10, 7-8:30 pm, Dan will participate in a Synergies event at the Anchorage Museum.
If you missed the recent Crosscurrents event with Andromeda-Romano Lax and Eowyn Ivey, the podcast is now available on the 49 Writers website under Resources. Thanks again to Jeff Oliver for recording. Coming up Tuesday, March 6, 7pm, 49 Writers Reading and Craft Series presents poet Joan Kane with “In Other Words: Poetry in Translation. She will talk about the function of translation work in generating new poems and revisiting bodies of writing. Metro Books, 530 E. Benson Blvd No.9, Anchorage.
Registration opens soon. Details of our popular Tutka Bay Writers Retreat are coming. This year, the retreat will last two days and take place from Friday, September 7 through Sunday, September 9.
There is still time to sign up for the last classes of our spring season. Starting on Wednesday, March 7, 6:30-9:00 pm, Kelsea Habecker (author of Hollow Out, New Rivers Press), will be teaching a four-week workshop for intermediate writers, “Pursuing Poetry.” The season ends with a bang with not one but two workshops from the inimitable Steve Almond, who describes himself as “the author of a bunch of books and two children. The children, at least, are cute.” On Saturday, April 7, 10am to 12:30 pm, Steve will teach a workshop on “Obsessive Writing.” In the afternoon of the same day, join him for a second session, 2-4:30 pm, entitled “Funny is the New Deep.”
We’re at the AWP conference in Chicago this week, so look for news on this next Friday.
Alaska Literary Series will be at AWP March 1-3, table F18. Amber Flora Thomas will be signing copies of her book The Rabbits Could Sing from 1-2pm. Joan Kane will be signing copies of The Cormorant Hunter’s Wife from 2-3pm. There will also be copies of Marjorie Kowalski Cole’s City Beneath the Snow.
Today, Friday March 2, 7pm, the Alaska Quarterly Review First Friday series features Jeff Silverman reading selections from the Fall 2011 edition of the Alaska Quarterly Review, and musical guest Flat Baroque: an ensemble including recorders, krumhorns, violin, guitar, harpsichord, percussion and vocals. For more information, visit their website uaa.alaska.edu/aqr Jitters Cafe, 111401 Old Glenn Highway, Eagle River.
Today, Friday March 2, 7pm, the winners of the Kenai Peninsula Writers’ Contest will read their winning entry at Bunnell St. Gallery, old town Homer. To be followed by a benefit concert for Homer Council on the Arts with Alaskan singer-songwriter Robin Hopper.
On Saturday, March 3, 10am, a writers’ critique group will meet at Title Wave Books, Northern Lights Mall, Anchorage. Open to any type of writing or genre, and all levels. For more information, call Mary at (907) 569 5075.
On Monday, March 5, 5-7pm, Author and CWLA MFA Faculty member Carolyn Turgeon presents The Next Full Moon, her first children’s book. UAA Campus Bookstore.
On Tuesday March 6, 12-2pm, Dr Christopher Clark presents “Whales and Acoustics in the Marine Environment. Dr Clark is director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. This event is sponsored with Alaska’s Big Village Network. UAA Campus Bookstore.
Also on Tuesday, March 6, 5-7pm at the UAA Campus Bookstore, Ahmed Elramsisy presents “Egypt and its Changing Society.”
Next Friday and Saturday, March 9-10, starting 8am, the 17th Annual Pacific Rim Conference on Literature and Rhetoric will take place at UAA. Organized by Department of English graduate students, the conference welcomes Dr Brian Greenspan and Dr Cheryl Ball. The conference is dedicated to examining the implications of multimodality for the way we think, learn, read, and write.
Next Friday, March 9, 7pm, the Midnight Sun Visiting Writer Series presents Sarah Gorham, who will read poets and essays. Wood Center Ballroom, UAF Campus.
Next Saturday, March 10, 7pm, the Literary Reading Series presents the Fairbanks Arts Association’s Eighteenth Annual Statewide Poetry Contest Winners in the Bear Gallery. Featuring poets Finn Mackinaw, Canon Cogan, Mei Flory, Elizabeth Alexander, Chaya Pike, Simon Langham, Shelly Jackson, Ela Harrison Gordon and Monica Devine. Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts, 2300 Airport Way, Fairbanks. Free and open to all.
Organization is underway for the “Writers on the Sound” event in October. If you are interested in presenting at the event, please send email to wots@ci.edmonds.wa.us or write to WOTS Presenters, 700 Main St, Edmonds, WA 98020, or call 425 771 0228.
The call for presenters for Writers on the Sound is for the annual 2 1/2 day Writers Conference in October in Edmonds WA, just north of Seattle. You can see details and photos here: http://bit.ly/xd5vSX
I can possibly put a presenter up at my place, but my private email address will surely be removed from this post soon! Stay tuned….