Deb Vanasse

North Words Writers Symposium | What A Few Can Do

Perhaps you’ve heard how this statewide organization, 49 Writers, got started. Two people who’d never before met—that would be Andromeda Romano-Lax and me—joined forces to encourage and promote the work of Alaska writers. North Words Writers Symposium followed a similar trajectory although, in truth, their origin story is even cooler than ours. Years ago, Skagway’s […]

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Deb Vanasse | Dirty Secrets of Revision and Editing

I’ve warned you before—I’m obsessed with gardening. Especially this year, when after thirty-six years in Alaska, I moved to the Oregon Coast, where people informed me that everything would grow bigger and faster than I ever expected. It does. For the connections with writing, I blame Natalie Goldberg, whose wisdom I shared most recently when talking

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New Digs for the Blog!

It’s been almost nine years to the day since Deb Vanasse posted the very first post on this blog. 49 Writers was not yet a nonprofit organization back then, we had not started offering classes and events, and the blog still had its original name—49 Writers, No Moose. Deb’s first sentence in that first post

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Spotlight on Alaska Books: Wealth Woman, by Deb Vanasse

Excerpt: An exceptional and complex woman, Kate will prove herself neither angel nor demon. Her perspective—and indeed the perspective of all Native people—will be overlooked time and again in the plethora of books that will be written about the Klondike, popular accounts of the gold rush that emphasize the values and accomplishments of outsiders. But

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Deb: The Book, Reimagined

Short Editions vending machine dispenses a story. Image: www.travelandleisure.com I’ve become rather notorious for reading the latest sensation, the must-read pick of the season, a good ten to fifteen years after everyone else does. I could try to convince you that I do this on purpose, in order to savor the story after the furor

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Book Deals: What Authors Don’t Ask Their Publishers

I’ve been at this publishing game for a while now—twenty years, seventeen books, six different publishers. From a writer’s perspective, it’s a complicated business. You may think your contract spells out everything related to your book deal, when in fact many details that can make or break your publishing experience won’t be covered in your

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