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.
- Online | This is Your Year to Get An Agent with Andromeda Romano-Lax: October 6-14 | online, asynchronous, ~ 8 hours
- 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 | College Admission Essay Writing Workshop | Saturdays Sept 29, Oct 6, and Oct 13, 10 AM-12 PM | Story Works‘ upcoming workshop still has spots left! Over three sessions, students bring essay drafts for review and have time to work on revisions. Volunteer writing coaches from Story Works Alaska read the essays and offer in-person suggestions and guidance. Free snacks available. More info and registration here.
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.
- Monday, October 8, 2018 from 4-6 PM: Poet Chaud Ballard presents Flight. A winner of the 2018 Sunken Garden Poetry Prize, Flight is a collection of poems that give testament to the struggle of skin color in contemporary America. Ballard was raised in Missouri and California. He is a graduate of the MFA Program at UAA and an affiliate editor for Alaska Quarterly Review.
- Tuesday, October 9, 2018 from 4-6 PM: Carla Williams presents Wildcat Women: Narratives of Women Breaking Ground in Alaska’s Oil and Gas Industry. The book documents the life and labor of pioneering women in the oil fields of Alaska’s North Slope. Carla Williams, raised in Crosby, Minnesota, lived for forty years in Alaska. She received a Bachelor of Arts in English from UAF and spent most of her career working in Alaska’s oil and gas industry.
- Thursday, October 11, 2018 from 12-2 PM: John Haines’ Poems through Chinese translation. Summer Hu of the UAA Confucius Institute discusses John Haines’ poems through a Chinese lens. Poems will be taken from Pangolin House, the international journal of Chinese and English-language poetry.
- Friday, October 12, 2018 from 4-6 PM: True Crime vs Perfect Crime. Authors Dana Stabenow (Less Than A Treason), Leland Hale (What Happened in Craig? Alaska’s Worse Unsolved Murder), Tom Brennan (Dead Man’s Dancer), Keenan Powell (Deadly Solutions) are joined by author and journalist Lael Morgan, a licensed private detective and former police reporter.
GLENNALLEN | Thursdays, October 4, 11, and 18, 2018, from 6-9 PM | Writing Memoir Using the Windshield and the Mirrors. Join us for Writing Memoir course with Mary Odden at Copper Basin Extension Center. Fee: $100. Located at the Prince William Sound College: Copper Basin, 1976 Aurora Dr. Virtual conferencing option is available. For more information and to register, see their Facebook page and website.
ANCHORAGE | Saturday, October 6, 2018 at 7 PM | Alaska Quarterly Review’s “Here & Over There,” an evening of readings and discussions with Alaskan poets at The Writer’s Block Bookstore & Café. The event will feature the launch of AQR’s 36th anniversary edition and the Alaska premieres of two new award-winning books of poetry: Tara Ballard’s House of the Night Watch, and Chaun Ballard’s Flight. Co-sponsored by 49 Writers to help kick off Alaska Book Week.
ANCHORAGE | Thursday, October 11, 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 Writer’s Block. For registration to read your work, see the OPPORTUNITIES section below or see their website page here.
ANCHORAGE | Wednesday, October 10, 2018, 7 PM| History, Poetry, and Creativity with Nicole Stellon O’Donnell | JZ Loussac Public Library, 3600 Denali St. Anchorage, 99503. History, poetry, the past and the future blend in a discussion led by award-winning Fairbanks poet Nicole Stellon O’Donnell during the Friends of the Library annual meeting Wednesday, Oct. 10. O’Donnell is the author of Steam Laundry, the 2018 Alaska Reads selection featured by libraries and book clubs across the state. Book sales and a book signing will follow the talk. This presentation is part of Friends of the Library’s annual meeting, held in the Ann Stevens Room of Z.J. Loussac Library, 3600 Denali St. in Anchorage. A reception is set for 5:30-6 p.m., followed by the annual meeting and a “State of the Library” report at 6 p.m. O’Donnell’s talk is at 7 p.m. The public is welcome and admission is free.
ANCHORAGE | Friday, October 12, 2018 from 1-7 PM | Alaska Native Book Fair with panel discussions from 4-6 PM. Located at the ANTHC COB Atrium, 4000 Ambassador Dr.
HOMER | Registration Deadline: October 10, 2018 | Class on Saturday, October 13, 2018 from 10 AM-3:30 PM | Writing the Inscrutable: a workshop with UAA professor and MFA Director David Stevenson. During the workshop, students will do readings and writings “in which we will valorize making beauty over making meaning.” Fee: $40. Information and registration here. Workshop located at the Kachemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College. Also: 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 99508Colors 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 | Saturday, October 6, 2018 from 7 PM, Bear Gallery (3rd Floor of the Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts) Pioneer Park, 2300 Airport Way) | Literary Reading with Linda Schandelmeier. She’ll also sign books the night before, October 5, from 5-7, also in the Bear Gallery. Linda Schandelmeier grew up on a family homestead six miles south of Anchorage in the 1950s and 60s. Her new collection of poems, Coming Out of Nowhere, is part memoir and part historical document. The poems celebrate the unique and nurturing aspects of homestead life, but do not shy away from unpleasant family details. Linda has one other collection, Listening Hard Among the Birches. Her poetry has been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, including an Artist-in-Residence at Denali National Park in 2012, a Rasmuson Individual Artist Project Award in 2006, and an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alaska State Council on the Arts in 1984. She is the winner of the Midnight Sun, Fejés, and Anchorage Daily News-UAA prizes for poetry. Linda’s poems have been set to music in three song cycles, one of which, “Poem Against the Cold”, by British composer Corey Field, was performed at Carnegie Hall. A retired biologist and elementary school teacher, and an active master gardener and political activist, Linda lives near Fairbanks, Alaska.
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.
OPPORTUNITIES and AWARDS for WRITERS
ANCHORAGE, JUNEAU, FAIRBANKS | 2018 | Voices of the Region: Alaska Women Speak is looking for Alaska women writers to read their work. Part of the Alaska Women Speak Journal 2018 Fall Reading. Complete the web registration form here to speak.
- Juneau form past due.
- Fairbanks form due by Friday, October 5.
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
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