“As the road crested over its top everything shimmered, the whole landscape gold and scintillating . . .Physical and temporal boundaries dissolved, and it felt like I’d reached a culmination, as if some crucial gap in my life had been filled.” So writes our featured author, John Morgan, of a culminating moment as the first …
Denali Park Journal, Part Two: A guest post by John Morgan Read More »
For ten marvelous days this past June, I was writer-in-residence at Denali National Park. Here are some excerpts from the journal I kept. Day 1. Driving to the cabin, I saw a group of fourteen caribou being pestered by a pair of long-tailed jaegers—move along! move along!—they swooped and shouted, protecting their territory. Focusing my …
Denali Park Journal, Part One: A guest post by John Morgan Read More »
This month’s 49 Writers featured author John Morgan admits to being “seduced by iambics” while exploring the “cheater sonnet.” Maybe we should coin a phrase: Alaskan sonnet? Last month around the equinox, Anchorage poet Tom Sexton drove up to Fairbanks for a reading. His latest book For the Sake of the Light: New and Selected …
The Cheater’s Sonnet: A Guest Post by John Morgan Read More »
Is poetry un-Alaskan? Featured author John Morgan ponders the value and risks associated with this most solitary art. (Above, Jim Orvik’s painting, which will be on the cover of Morgan’s forthcoming collection, “Spear-Fishing on the Chatanika: New and Selected Poems.” When Nancy Lord pointed out in an earlier blog that unlike almost every other state, …
Thanks to all who participated in this week’s 49 writers online book club discussion of And She Was, and especially to author Cindy Dyson for joining in. We batted around some fascinating ideas. Andromeda will take charge of our final book club discussion for the year; watch here for details in the weeks ahead. And …
It’s already October, and we’re celebrating with the first guest post from featured author John Morgan. Morgan has published three books of poetry and several chapbooks, along with a new collection, Spear-Fishing on the Chatanika: New and Selected Poems, coming out next year from Salmon Poetry in Ireland. In the sidebar photo to the right, …
Never mind the uncertainties of publishing, the hours spent drafting and revising, the frustrations of living far from the places where decisions are made. We get to write in Alaska. And now there’s the prospect of wilderness retreats in the heart of Denali National Park, if the writer-in-residence program takes hold. Here, poet John Morgan …
First, many thanks to Marybeth Holleman, our featured author for March, for her insightful posts. With the turning of the calendar arrives award-winning author David Vann, whom we’re featuring during April. By clicking on his photo in the sidebar, you can link to previous posts by and about David. We’ve also posted a photo of …
