Watch a recording of this event:
49 Writers Inspiration Series: Dana Stabenow
Recorded: Tuesday, March 15 | 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM
via Zoom
Inspirations is a 49 Writers series in which Writer Laureate Heather Lende will interview some of Alaska’s premier writers about their work, process, and the writing life.
Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage and raised on 75-foot fish tender in the Gulf of Alaska. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing. Her first science fiction novel, Second Star, sank without a trace (but has since been resurrected as an e-book), her first crime fiction novel, A Cold Day for Murder, won an Edgar award, her first thriller, Blindfold Game, hit the New York Times bestseller list. At present she is at work on the 21st Kate Shugak novel.
Heather Lende is the Alaska State Writer Laureate and the author of four bestselling memoirs from Algonquin Books, the 2020 Alaska Reads pick, Find the Good, If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs, and most recently Of Bears and Ballots about her contentious 2016-19 term on the Haines Borough Assembly. Her many essays and stories, mostly about life and sometimes death, have been distributed widely. Heather is a former Anchorage Daily News and Alaska Dispatch columnist and contributing editor at Woman’s Day magazine and has written hundreds of obituaries for the Chilkat Valley News in Haines where she lives with her husband Chip. They have five adult children. She is the recipient of the 2021 Middlebury College distinguished alumni award, the Alaska Governor’s Award for Arts and Humanities, the Episcopal Bishop of Alaska’s Bishop’s Cross award, and the Jason Wegner Memorial Writing Award from UAA, where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing.
I have read most of Dana’s Kate Shugak novels, all the Alaska trooper mysteries and currently reading Prepared for Rage. I can’t put them down.
My wife and I have listened to many of Louise Penny’s novel on audio while driving and more than once have sat in our car after arriving home to finish the last chapter. Alaska has good taste in authors.