Have you been celebrating Alaska Book Week? There have been so many great author and literary events happening. The fun doesn’t end with the end of the week! 49 Writers is thrilled to be bringing Andromeda Romano-Lax and Patrice Gopo to Anchorage for a series of events next week. We’re also excited to announce our first ever out-of-state writers event featuring Alaskan authors. We’re collaborating with Hugo House to sponsor an evening celebrating the work of five indigenous authors. Details on this and the rest of your literary calendar below.
49 Writers CLASSES
49 Writers is offering classes this autumn 2018 in Anchorage, Juneau, and online. For more information and to register, visit the class catalog on our web site.
- Beyond Hooked: What We Can Learn from the First Paragraphs of Compelling Novels and Narrative Nonfiction with Andromeda Romano-Lax. Members or full time students: $39 | General enrollment: $48
- Juneau: October 16, 2018, 6-9 PM | Location: Mother Kathleen Library at Holy Trinity, 415 Fourth Street
- Anchorage: October 20, 2018, 1-4 PM| Location: Anchorage Community House, 3502 Spenard Road, 99503 (Located behind/west of Church of Love~plenty of off-street parking)
More classes will be announced soon!
SOUTHCENTRAL
ANCHORAGE | October 2018 | The UAA Campus bookstore is holding several events during the month of October 2018. All events are free and open to public.
- Tuesday, October 16, 2018 from 7-8:30 PM: Barrett Martin will present his book, The Singing Earth. Martin is a Grammy-winning producer, composer, and renowned session drummer and percussionist who has played on over 100 Rock, Blues, Jazz, and World music albums. The Singing Earth is a collection of musical adventure stories that chronicle his musical work in 14 musical regions, across 6 continents, over the course of 30 years.
- Wednesday, October 17, 2018 from 4-6 PM: A family trio of authors will present their books.
- Jan Harper Haines’ memoir is Cold River Spirits: Whispers from a Family’s Forgotten Past, a classic in Alaska literature. It brings together stories from the life and times of her Koyukon Athabascan mother and grandmother.
- Haines’ cousin, Professor Emerita Phyllis Fast, is an anthropologist and author of the acclaimed Northern Athabascan Survival Women, Community, and the Future. Her current focus is writing Alaska Native mysteries. At this event, she presents her newest book, Red Paint Woman.
- Fast’s sister in law Jane E. Harper will present Unequally Divided, a novel portraying the difficult choices of love and life’s direction during the tumultuous Vietnam era.
HOMER | Public Reading with David Stevenson on Friday, October 12, 2018 at 6:30 PM. Contact 907-235-7743 or kbcinfo@alaska.edu for more information.
ANCHORAGE October 18, 2018, 7 PM | Alaska Pacific University, 4101 University Drive, Anchorage, AK 99508 | 49 Writers presents Crosscurrents| Colors and Journeys, Secrets and Dreams: Essayist Patrice Gopo and novelist Andromeda Romano-Lax Discuss Writing About Race, Place, Belonging and Becoming | As a society, we often reduce other people’s stories to 280 character tweets, clickbait headlines, and hashtags. The reality, though, is that we are all more than just our surface story and the assumed story that might be visible to the eye. Our identities are formed from layer after layer of what many may never know or cannot see. Join authors Andromeda Romano-Lax and Patrice Gopo as they share short excerpts from their new books and converse about the complexity of racial and ethnic heritage, the impact of migration, the questions of home, and the reality that the world is often not what it seems.
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 | 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.
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 | Playwriting Your Life | October 16, 2018, at Perseverance Theatre, 914 Third Street, Douglas, AK 99824 | Playwriting is a talent that a surprising number of people have without knowing it—because they’ve never tried it. Join us for a relaxed (fun, I promise) workshop where we learn how to write plays. Knowing how to write a play will improve your other writing, and even improve other parts of your life. If you want to find out how, you’ll just have to come! This workshop is for adults (writers 18 and older); Steve is also teaching some free youth workshops while he’s here, so if you’re not 18, please check those out! Pay-What-You-Can; proceeds will benefit Perseverance Theatre’s education and outreach programs. Co-sponsored by 49 Writers.
JUNEAU | Thursday, October 18, 2018 from 7-8 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 Hearthside Books. For registration to read your work, see the OPPORTUNITIES section below or see their website page here.
SKAGWAY | Author and poet John Straley will be reading at the Skagway Public Library on Sunday October 21, 2018 at 2 p.m., followed by a library open house. Straley is being hosted by Skaguay News Depot & Books and the library. He has two new books out this year: the mystery Baby’s First Felony and 100 Poems of Fall.
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 | Friday, October 19, 2018 from 7-8 PM | The Midnight Sun Visiting Writers Series features novelist Anne Valente, author of Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down and several other books. Her fiction has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, her essays in The Washington Post, and her work has appeared in several other magazines and publications. Valente currently lives in New York where she teaches creative writing and literature at Hamilton College. Event to be held at the Schaible Auditorium on the UAF Campus. Facebook event
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
The Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society journal, The Sea Chest, is looking for submissions for its Winter 2019 special issue focusing on maritime life and history. Articles on the topic of historical ships, sailings, and sinkings in Alaskan waters are all welcome. Submission deadline is October 25, 2018. Email Pennelope Goforth at: seacat@cybrrcat.com. Visit http://www.pugetmaritime.org/heritage/the-sea-chest/ for more information on The Sea Chest.
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
Wildheart, an Alaskan women’s magazine, is accepting submissions through October 14, 2018 for their Winter issue. The theme will be Change: stories of weather, scenery, mind, mood, and heart. See their website for details and to submit.
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.
It’s Alaska Book Week! An annual week where Alaskans celebrate authors and books. Check out the Facebook page.
What’s missing? Submit your announcement for the next Roundup. Send an email with “Roundup” as the subject to 49blog@gmail.com
Thank You for Your Support! 49 Writers members and donors make this blog, our workshops, Crosscurrents events, Readings and Craft Talk series, and other special programs and activities possible. Not a member yet? Join Us