Dana Stabenow & Deb Vanasse It was great to see a classroom full of writers at the Anchorage Museum on Wednesday night, all eager to learn more about Independent Publishing Options for Writers with Dana Stabenow and Deb Vanasse. Dana shared the wisdom she’s gleaned from more than 20 years of traditional and now epublishing; …
This is the time of year when we shift gears and start looking ahead to the next year of programming and beyond. It’s time to plan a whole new fall season, and we’re considering a variety of ways to provide a strong program of creative writing classes and author events in Anchorage and also in …
Thank you to author and columnist Elise Patkotak, who closed our spring Reading & Craft Talk last night at Great Harvest Bread Company by sharing her wit, wisdom—and serious side, as well as talking about her experiences with self-publishing. Thank you too to the couple dozen people who forsook the sunny spring evening outisde to …
As you read this, I’m heading overseas on a personal working holiday (with opportunities to promote Alaskan writers) in Austria (which has no kangaroos: they even sell a postcard asserting this). The adventure will culminate in a weekend in Krakow with none other than Alaskan writer Kathleen Tarr. While I’m gone, the roundup will be …
Thank you to everyone who turned out for the Wednesday Crosscurrents event featuring Sherry Simpson and Christine Byl—we were treated to a fascinating conversation on the topic of Essaying Alaska: Beyond Images of the Last Frontier and what it means to write authentically about this place we love and call home. Special thanks to our …
Photo by Sean Mattison We are thrilled to announce that acclaimed poet Carolyn Forché will teach at this year’s Tutka Bay Writers Retreat, Sept. 5-7, 2014. Do consider joining us for an intensive, generative weekend workshop, “Writing on Tutka Bay: New Poems, New Passages.” This year’s retreat is designed for poets and memoirists who want to …
Thanks to all who turned out for our first 2012 Synergies, “Poemgrass: a Poet and a Banjo,” with special thanks to poet Peggy Shumaker and musician Robin Child as well as volunteer coordinators Jeremy Pataky and Susanna Mishler. Coming up: statewide Resolve to Write events, when we gather to share our writing resolve for the …
Tom Waits talks to his songs while he’s composing. He’ll flirt with one in the studio, he’ll argue with another while driving home. He’s been known to bully, sweet-talk, talk shop, talk up, whisper, and say whatever it takes to get a song to reveal itself. In an 2002 interview with Elizabeth Gilbert (who later …
Finding the Strangeness: A Guest Post by Susanna Mishler Read More »
Thanks to our featured July writer, Susanna, for this great post– and just by chance, we have another post about the Kenyon experience coming tomorrow, from Lucian Childs. May those Alaska-Kenyon connections keep flourishing! A month ago I attended the Kenyon Review Writer’s Workshop at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. There are many summer workshops …
Many teachers say that learning to write well is paramount to learning to think complexly. As a writer and sometime teacher I believe this. Laying thoughts on paper where we can look at them teaches us to see flaws in argument, persuasion, logic, sequence, etc. It’s not hard to see how writing a persuasive essay …
