49 Writers CLASSES
ANCHORAGE |Tuesday, Nov. 27, 2018 from 10 am – 4 pm | More Than War Stories: Practical Steps to Write and Publish Your Book with John Straley | Location to be announced, but it’ll be in midtown/Spenard area. Members or full time students: $69 | General enrollment: $78 Cap: 12 | All experience levels.
In this full-day course, novelist and poet John Straley will break down and address the different kinds of discipline necessary to complete and publish your book. We will work on writing pitch letters, which helps one focus on what the book is really about. We’ll examine the importance of opening paragraphs and query letters. We’ll also discuss research, drafting, revising, working with editors, editing on one’s own, and we’ll touch on finding suitable publishers.
Please note: We’ll also present John Straley in a reading and signing on Friday, November 16, 2018, 7 PM at the Writer’s Block Bookstore & Cafe. See below.
SOUTHCENTRAL
ANCHORAGE | Monday, October 29, 2018 from 7-9 PM | Marilyn Sigman will present her new book on ecological change, Entangled, at the Campbell Creek Science Center. The event is designed as an opportunity to think about coping with ecological change in management of Kachemak Bay State Park and Critical Habitat Area.
ANCHORAGE | November 2018 | The UAA Campus bookstore is holding several events during the month of November 2018. All events are free and open to public. Only one has been announced for this week:
- Thursday, November 1, 2018 from 12-2 PM: Legendary Chinese Poetess and Courtesan: Xue Tao. Xue Tao (768-831 A.D.) was a well-known poet in an age when all men of learning were poets and almost all women were illiterate. At this time, Xue Tao also possessed another two identities that achieved her a legendary life coupled with meandering love during the Tang dynasty.
ANCHORAGE | Friday, November 2, 2018 from 5:30-6:30 PM | Adrienne Lindholm is presenting her new book, It Happened Like This. The book is a coming of age memoir that takes readers on an intimate journey into adulthood, and into the depth and comfort of wilderness. Book launch will be held at Red Chair Cafe, 337 E. 4th Ave. Complementary hors d’oeuvres will be at 5:30 with presentation and cash bar from 6-6:30. Visit https://www.adriennelindholm.com/ for more info.
ANCHORAGE | Friday, November 2, 2018 from 6-7 PM | Alaska Native Heritage Month: 2018 Guggenheim Fellow Joan Naviyuk Kane will read from her sixth book, Sublingual, to be published in November, and from her seventh book, Another Bright Departure, forthcoming in March 2019. This reading will continue the work of indigenous writers across the circumpolar north across political and artistic borders. Kane is an Inupiaq poet who grew up in Anchorage. Reading will be held at the Anchorage Museum at the Rasmuson Center. Facebook event
ANCHORAGE | November 12, 2018 at 6 pm | Danger Close Finale Celebration | FREE, Location: The Writer’s Block Bookstore and Café 3956 Spenard Rd, Anchorage, AK 99517. To celebrate the finale of the 2018 season, author and 49 Writers board member Matthew Komatsu and a selection of writers from the season will present work at The Writer’s Block.
We are proud to present the 2018 offering of Danger Close Alaska, the third year of joint 49 Writers and Alaska Humanities Forum programming meant to build a literary community of civilians and veterans. This year, Danger Close Alaska took place one night a month for six consecutive months.The United States has been at war continuously since September 11, 2001. While only 1% of the population volunteers to serve in the nation’s wars, every American’s life has been touched by war since that day. Every American story is now, in some way, a war story. Here in Alaska, the veteran population exceeds 73,000 men and women, constituting nearly 10 percent of the state population.
ANCHORAGE | November 16, 2018: John Straley Reading & Signing at The Writer’s Block Bookstore and Cafe, 7 pm, FREE. John Straley has written ten Alaska novels plus several books of poetry. Straley has lived in Alaska forty-two years and was the twelfth Alaska Writer Laureate. Born in Redwood City, California, he grew up in the Seattle area and attended high school in New York City. Straley trained, with encouragement from his parents, to be a horseshoer. He attended Grinnell College before transferring to the University of Washington for a degree in writing. After college and a stint in Eastern Washington, he followed his wife to Sitka, Alaska in 1977. After moving through a number of jobs he became a private investigator. In 1985, he became a staff investigator for the Alaska Public Defender’s office in Sitka, a position he held until 2015. As an investigator, he continued to write. After being turned down by numerous publishers, in 1991 he received a tip from friend and anthropologist Richard Nelson that New York City-based Soho Press was interested in detective fiction novels. Upon submitting his manuscript for The Woman Who Married a Bear, Soho Press expressed interest in his work. His successful run of Cecil Younger mysteries has garnered critical acclaim.
SOUTHEAST
WRANGELL | Flying Island Writers & Artists group meets every other Monday 6:30-8 PM. Contact Vivian Faith Prescott for more information contact doctorviv@yahoo.com
JUNEAU | November 23-24, 2018 | APK Marketplace: a venue for authors and artists to sell their work. For more information, visit foslam.org/market or call Sarah at 907-209-5970.
INTERIOR
FAIRBANKS | Saturday, November 3, 2018 6:30-8 PM | Voices of the Region: The Alaska Women Speak Journal 2018 Fall Reading Series will feature Alaska women reading their own works. Reading to be held at the Fairbanks Arts Association in the Bear Gallery. For registration to read your work, see the OPPORTUNITIES section below or see their website page here.
BEYOND ALASKA
SEATTLE | Roughly for the North: A Reading and Discussion with Native Women Writers at Hugo House | 7 PM, October 27, 2018 | Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave, Seattle, WA 98122 | FREE. 49 Writers is teaming up with Seattle’s Hugo House to present our first out-of-state program. Featuring five indigenous women writers including three Alaska Native poets and kicking off Native American Heritage Month (November), the event will launch Carrie Ayagaduk Ojanen’s debut poetry collection Roughly for the North (University of Alaska Press 2018) and promote forthcoming debut poetry collections by Abigail Chabitnoy (How to Dress a Fish, Wesleyan University Press 2019) and Casandra López (Brother Bullet, University of Arizona Press 2019), along with the Institute of American Indian Arts MFA faculty Kristiana Kahakauwila’s This is Paradise (Penguin Random House 2013) and novel-in-progress, and the November release of Joan Naviyuk Kane’s sixth collection, Sublingual (Finishing Line Press, November 2018).
OPPORTUNITIES and AWARDS for WRITERS
Alaska Writers Guild‘s quarterly writing contest, open to members and non-members alike, is open for poetry through November 16, 2018. Sadly, submissions for fiction and children’s lit are closed. More details: https://www.alaskawritersguild.com/writing-contest
WGBH Scriptwriting fellowship: learn to write for a TV series! WGBH is a broadcast center in Massachusetts that is seeking out Alaska Natives to use their own experiences to develop narratives. Learn more and apply here. Fellowship will take place in early November 2018. Scripts will be used toward a new children’s animated series called Molly in Denali.
Alaska Women Speak Winter 2018 Submissions: currently accepting prose, poetry and cover art possibilities for the Winter theme “Stoking the Fire.” Deadline November 15, 2018. Visit their website for more information and to submit.
Hometown Reads is in Anchorage! A website dedicated to locating authors near you, Hometown Reads has a section for Anchorage. Sign up to have your book displayed and join the Facebook page to brainstorm ways to advertise and sell books locally. Check it out at https://hometownreads.com.
What’s missing? Submit your announcement for the next Roundup. Send an email with “Roundup” as the subject to 49blog@gmail.com
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