Alaskan Authors

OPRAH KIDS

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:25:00 +0000

It's somehow appropriate as the huge midnight parties are gearing up for Stephanie Meyer's Breaking Dawn (2.4 million copies? 4 million copies? I have trouble with these big numbers.), Oprah is kicking off her list of 100 recommended reads for kids.

I have nothing personal against Oprah. I like what she did with Eckhart Tolle, and her staffers consulted ALA for the kid list. But there's this issue - eloquently and thoroughly explored by my brother in Revolt of the Mass Cult - of replacing though-provoking commentary with "read this because everyone is."

But back to Breaking Dawn. It's coming later and later here - and I don't mean the book. Today I do believe a tear may have slipped from my eye as I watched little gold leaves flutter from the birch tree to the ground.

Yikes. What happened to summer?

MOVING TARGETS

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 01:39:00 +0000

A strange, shiny disk in yesterday's sky. Not to worry - it slipped away before it caused any permanent damage. Hmmm...maybe that's what those dark shades are for?

Yesterday brought more big news for Alaska. Sarah breathed a big sigh of relief when Uncle Ted got indicted, diverting the pariahs from chewing and re-chewing news of the legislature's pending investigation of her own possible indiscretions.

And lucky Uncle Ted did his own big exhale when, not an hour after news of his indictment broke, the earth-gods rumbled and shook the ground near L.A., diverting the news hounds yet again.

Ted's indictment lands Alaskans in the sticky goo we've slobbed around in since before statehood. We'll make our own way, the rest of you be damned - except that we need a healthy infusion of federal cash now and then, and buddying up to the oil companies is in everyone's best interest...isn't it?

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:45:00 +0000

We're making the best of a bad summer, weatherwise. La Nina is the culprit. Rumor has it that we're on the way to setting records for cold and rain. By way of comfort, the weather people tell us it's supposed to warm up in October, just in time to screw up our skiing.

But nobody came here for the weather. The best antidote to a gray and rainy day is to get out and play. We hiked three hours through some stunning alpine terrain on Saturday, and another six hours on Sunday. The weekend had been set aside for backpacking on another trail - a plan we had to abort when we learned the trail is still snow-packed.

The most recent Anchorage Press is its Books Edition, meaning that they've devoted two pages to reviews of three books by Alaskan authors Kantner, Doogan, and Sherwonit. Reviewing seems to be going the way of tatting. I, for one, am frustrated every Sunday by the ADN's so-called reviews - quotes of one or two paragraphs from newly-released Alaskan titles, most of them self-published.

I'm not a publishing snob, but I like reviewers to be selective, both about what they review and what they say. Of the three reviews in the Press, Sherwonit's book was handled best. After reading it, I had a good sense of what the book was about and whether I might like to read it. That's a far cry from what I get from the ADN, where the main goal appears to be to hurt no writer's feelings.

I know writers who refuse to read their reviews. That's their perogative. I like reviews, both as a writer and a reader. I don't want to hear only from fans.

The LA Times Book Review is folding. Does anyone else miss reviews?

AROUND THE CAMPFIRE

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:53:00 +0000

Duly noted - though a bit late - the twelve-day writing intensive at the University of Alaska Anchorage, ending this week. UAA has wisely developed a low-residency MFA program, headed by Sherry Simpson (you'll recall I'm a fan). The instensive gives students a chance to interact with over a dozen authors, with each author presenting lectures that are free to the public.

Looking over short bios of the authors, I got to thinking about literary fiction in general and MFA programs in particular. (Disclaimer: I don't have an MFA.)

I like what Anne Lamott said in a recent CBC interview about writers inviting people to their campfires - that's what stories, good stories, are all about. I love to read approachable stories and poems - literature that pulls me to the campfire, literature that engages me in a common experiences.

What happens with literary, MFA-style writing? Is the campfire smaller, more distant, more exclusive? Or is that an unfortunate misconception?

Blood-Sucking Attraction

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:12:00 +0000

Summer's squeeze-it-in time up North. I've covered a lot of ground these last few weeks - 4000 miles, give or take a few. Great adventures in the Yukon, NWT, and of course Alaska. If you get a chance to drive the Dempster, don't ask - just do it. Incredible wilderness that surpasses the Dalton by a long toss.

Just read an Op-Ed by NYT's Gail Collins about the Twilight phenome. If you've had your head in a bucket and haven't heard, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight saga has sold over 4 million and counting. The attraction is a drop-dead gorgeous vampire who restrains himself in book after book from doing anything more than cuddle and kiss with his teen girlfriend, to whom he's ever faithful and true.

Collins ponders what happens when teen girls saturate themselves with lustful but never consumated love while teen boys lap up internet porn. Healthy future relationships don't pop to the top of the list.

We have more than our share of blood-suckers up here. Love and lust hardly come to mind when we're swatting back swarms of mosquitoes. We like to think that our women are hardier than Meyer's Bella, who spends virtually waking moment lusting over her vampire. Role models? Give me Fannie Quigley.

THE ACCIDENTAL EXPLORER

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:44:00 +0000

If you're looking for a great summer read, check out Sherry Simpson's latest - The Accidental Explorer: Wayfinding in Alaska.

I'm a big Simpson fan. In Alaska Magazine, she writes with wit and insight about Alaskan adventures. But the essays in this collection are heavier. More serious. Just the word essay brings that out in us, I guess. I had a little trouble adjusting, like when you think you ordered the fruit cup and you end up with bread pudding.

But Simpson's transparent take on adventuring won me over. She skips the sugar-coating, opening with a soggy kayak trip in a chapter called "A Nuisance to Myself and Others." I especially liked "Turning Back," about a solo trip through the White Mountains aborted for the sake of her dog, and "A Man Made Cold by the Universe," about the guy Alaskans love to hate, Chris McCandless.

Interlaced with Simpson's personal narratives is some great historical material, like this understatement from Capt. William Abercrombie about the Copper Valley prospectors he met in 1898: "I noticed in talking to these people that over 70 percent of them were more or less mentally deranged."

All in all, it's a great read, with plenty of moments that stick long after you've turned the final page.

FOLLOWING THE DEAD

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 01:15:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I posted on the Kindle and its potential effect on the publishing industry. A New York Times Op-Ed piece by Paul Krugman - Bits, Bands, and Books - has more to say about how the world is changing for authors and publishers. He points to the Grateful Dead, who proclaimed that merchandising made up for lost revenue from fans who recorded and distributed their music for free.

That keeps pop culture alive. What about literature? Bring on the patrons.

WE'VE COME A LONG WAY

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:09:00 +0000

I've spent the past couple of weeks, aside from hiking and camping, in the Alaska Room at the Loussac Library, poring through old books about Alaska - specifically, dozens of books in the public domain, published before 1923.

The books run quite the gamut. Everyone who'd visited the territory in those days had stories to tell. It's easy to imagine eager readers dreaming of Klondike gold and adventure, turning page after page to find out what this place was all about.

The same topics drew almost every author's pen: burial customs of the native peoples, totem poles, the trials of the trail. Wild predictions are made: reindeer will haul cargo over mountain passes; the territory will become an agricultural mecca. Perceptions of Alaskan natives are mostly steeped in prejudice and misunderstanding.

Much of the prose is flowery and overwrought. Readers today can be thankful styles have changed. Some is funny: "Log cabins stuffed with moss should be wonderful in the tropics. I'm about frozen," wrote Rockwell Kent. Some is brutally honest: "We had no time for amusement," wrote William Standley. "Our routine was to work a great deal, sleep a little and eat when we had the stuff."

Not much of it is great literature, but all of it illuminates our past.

MEMOIR MAKING

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:24:00 +0000

I had a wonderful dinner last night in Girdwood, at Alaska's famous Double Musky restaurant. Stunning scenery, savory food, great company - a new friend and one I'd known years ago. In the way things happen here, my new friend knew my old friend, and she re-connected us.

My "old" friend, who's very young at heart, came to Alaska in 1954. She and her husband homesteaded Stony River from 1960-1970, building not just a home for their family of seven but also a town so folks didn't have to send their kids to Wrangell to school. Gail Sheehy wrote about her in Passages. Now she's prepping to tell her own story by taking an online class in memoir writing with 12 people from across the country.

"Hands down, your stories are the best in the class," I said.

She laughed. "My classmates seem to think so," she admitted. In contrast memoirists who hype their tales, crossing the fuzzy line between creative nonfiction and fiction, my friend says she's having to tone some stories down a notch or two. "Otherwise no one would believe them," she explained.

I pressed for an example and had a good laugh over Uncle Tony, a careening fuel drum, and a red bathrobe - not all in the same tale. I won't give up the details - they're hers to tell. But this will be one to read. I can pretty much guarantee it.

POLAR POLKA

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:22:00 +0000

Suspend disbelief and enjoy Cherie Stihler's new reverse counting book, Polar Polka (Sasquatch,2008). Fanciful arctic animals join a polar bear polka band as pieces of iceberg break away and polar bears rally to save the day. Vibrant art by Erik Brooks brings the story to life, incorporating lots of active details that encourage kids to study every page.

If you think polar bears are getting lots of attention this reading season, you're right. And unfortunately reverse counting of these great white beasts is what scientists are actually doing. Just yesterday we learned that of fifty-plus animals tagged and studied this spring, only one was a yearling, which means the cub survival rate may be plummeting.

At the end of her book, Stihler offers a list of easy ways kids can help fight global warming. Big people, too, might want to heed the warning and jump on the iceberg, so to speak, before it's too late.

WINSTON OF CHURCHILL

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:54:00 +0000

Polar bears are big news these days. Are they threatened? Endangered? Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin is calling for a spendy conference to showcase scientific evidence that they're doing more or less fine despite the threat of global warming. Politics and science collide.

In Jane Davies Okimoto's new picture book Winston of Churchill, illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell (Sasquatch Books, 2008), polar bear activist Winston isn't concerned about what list he ends up on. He just wants his ice. Like his World War II namesake, cigar-chomping Winston rallies his comrades, organizing a polar bear protest to draw attention to his warming world. Along the way, he realizes that he must make a change or two of his own.

Trammell's delightful illustrations bring the polar protesters to life, and Okimoto wraps a simple explanation of global warming into the story. Okimoto's not Alaskan, and neither is Winston - the acclaimed polar bear town of Churchill is in northern Manitoba. But this book gives a nice introduction to a serious issue that affects us all.

UNLEARNING TO FLY

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Mon, 05 May 2008 15:47:00 +0000

A friend loaned me her copy of Jennifer Brice's memoir Unlearning to Fly, published in 2007 by the University of Nebraska Press. My friend couldn't get past the Preface, for reasons I'll explain. I pushed on through, and I'm glad I did.

There's no shortage of Alaskan memoirs. It's hard to find an Alaskan who doesn't consider her life unique and memoir-worthy, and there's a fair abundance of those who have the tenacity to write their stories and get them published, come hell or highwater, which is not so tough these days, thanks to print-on-demand and vanity presses abounding.

The University of Nebraska Press is far from a vanity press. They did well to publish Brice's book. In it, she speaks with grace and beauty of family, of risk-taking, of searching for one's place in the world. Flying is both a reality and a metaphor in the book, one that's happily not overdone.

I was privileged to work with Jennifer's mother, Carol, one of many Alaskan women with a remarkable mix of grit, fortitude, and refinement who did it all and then just a little bit more. So I may have lacked some objectivity in the early parts of the book - I loved learning more about Carol's background and how she raised her family.

Unlearning to Fly is about what it means to leave and come home again. It's about the forces of place that follow no matter where you go. It's about facing life dead on, about battling crosswinds, about forgiving and unforgiveness.

In my favorite chapter, "Loving Lloyd," Brice writes with brutal honesty about her adopted brother, a victim of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Among multiple problems, Lloyd, known to his adoptive family as Ben, gashes his wrists. "A few years ago," Brice writes, "someone in my family - I won't say who - said she wished he'd go ahead and cut a little deeper, like he really meant it. Someday he probably will."

Like life, Brice's chapters loop around one another, and time does double takes. Pesky concrete-sequentialism gives way to poignant meaning. In "The Metaphysics of Being Stuck," Brice asks how people really die in plane crashes. "Their hearts explode," explains a fellow pilot. That's not unlike what happens with Lloyd.

Which returns me to the problem with the preface. Alaskan are sticklers for details, especially when it comes to the place they hold dear. As a pilot, Brice knows that little things matter, that the whole is in all ways the sum of the parts. But she opens her book in April 1964, with an account of the great Alaskan Earthquake, also known as the Good Friday Earthquake - all well and good, except that the earthquake happened in March. This kind of faux pas makes Alaskans renounce books in their entirity. Usually their books by non-Alaskans who just can't get it right. I've done it myself - put done an acclaimed book by a renowned children's authors because it talked about a Native hunter selling ptarmigan to the meat department of a grocery store to earn some extra cash.

But Brice's book is too good to set aside. Forgive the error, even though it's posted front and center. Pilot error is the cause of most crashes. But as any good pilot will tell you, a few errors slip past the best of them.

KINDLE RAVES

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Fri, 02 May 2008 16:01:00 +0000

My friend just got a Kindle. Like lots of people, she had to wait. The electronic reader from Amazon sold out in 5 1/2 hours.

Some caveats: I'm not a techie. I love my independent bookstore. I love my library. I'm not one to chase after the latest gadgets. I'm not an industry analyst. I love holding a book in my hands.

But everything I hear about the Kindle has been over-the-top. There's no back-lit screen. You can do all sorts of annotation. It uses the same technology as advanced wireless phones. Sixty seconds after you order a book, you're reading it. It's light and easy for travel. It stores 200 books. You can adjust the print size, a plus for readers with vision issues.

A great device for folks who live in the Bush with no access to bookstores. Anyone know if the downloading works in those areas?

Here's what gets me really jazzed about Kindle. The publishing industry is broken. Warehousing and return issues in the unweildy hands of megacorporations mean that only blockbusters see the light of day, and out-of-print times are measured in months instead of years. But with devices like Kindle, books don't need to be warehoused or returned. They'll never go out of print.

A revolution? I think so. And one that's long overdue. The paradigm is shifting, and readers will benefit.

BEAR SCARES

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Thu, 01 May 2008 15:52:00 +0000

Like most everyone in Alaska this time of year, I'm thinking of spring. The other seasons saddle on in as a matter of course. Not spring. No matter where you live, it's much anticipated and prone to disappoint. Last week we were sure it had arrived in Southcentral Alaska. On Friday we got 20 inches of snow. It didn't spoil our trip to Chickaloon, which was all that mattered in my little world.

Before the snow, signs of spring were all around. Defiant greening grass skirting the edges of receding banks of snow. Water rushing through culverts. Flocks of geese and cranes making their way north. And bears.

The season's first bear attach was in Kenai. The victim will live, scarred and wiser. He'd seen a sow and cubs rooting around in his yard. His compost pile, filled with not-so-composty stuff like spaghetti, was a lazy toss from his front door. He went out jogging, and the sow charged. He ran. Bad idea. Bad, bad idea.

If you need a reminder of how dangerous Alaska's bears can be, read Larry's Kaniut's Alaska Bear Tales. If you like that, try his More Alaska Bear Tales. Or one of the Timothy Treadwell books, which I'll talk about in another post. But don't blame me if they keep you up nights. You may come away slightly scared, but sensible - a great tradeoff, any time of year.

DARK SIDE OF THE FRONTIER

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 17:08:00 +0000

I'm assisting with an anthology slated to come out later this year, a collection of narratives by some of the world's best mystery writers who, thanks to the astounding efforts of Alaska Sisters in Crime, visited some of the farthest-flung corners of Alaska, places that many of us will never be privileged to see.

More than one has written about how Alaska is the perfect place to set a mystery. Isolation, volatile issues, natural hazards, and a transient element up the ante for crafting a mystery. Great reads by John Straley, Dana Stabenow, Sue Henry, and Mike Doogan prove up on the possibilities.

Tragically, real life violence mirrors fiction. In 2003-2004, there were 134 suicides per 100,000 people in Alaska, compared to 10.9 as the US average. In the same year, there were 41 homicides per 100,000 in Alaska, compared to 6 as the US average.

The dark side of the frontier: alcohol abuse, depression, violence. It's all too real. Complex forces create what is by an standard an alarming issue. Good people work hard to address them. We learn much from the survivors, those who live and love and laugh and learn and forge communities that foster joy instead of despair.

FRONTIER FREEDOM

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:42:00 +0000

What makes an Alaskan? Author and professor Steve Haycox addressed the perennial question in last Friday's Anchorage Daily News. Alaska is more place than state, making for a more interesting discussion than one might asking "what is an Illini" or "what is a Minnesotan?"

Haycox cites the research of UAF professor and author Judith Kleinfeld, summarized in her book Go for It. Alaskans believe themselves to be more independent and more self-reliant than others. They see themselves as more willing to take risks, and they believe that Alaska has given them more opportunities than they would have had elsewhere.

As Haycox points out, some of our perceived independence and self-reliance land closer to myth than to reality. Seventy percent of us enjoy all the conveniences of at least a semi-urban lifestyle. And as a state, we're highly dependent on federal funding (can everyone say "earmarks"?) and the whims of big oil. As in the days of the Old West, frontier freedom is a romantic ideal that stacks short beside truth. But why confuse reality with perception?

HIGH DRAMA

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:37:00 +0000

Seasons shift with subtle changes, especially in the Far North. Crocus and daffodils will never grace the tundra, where spring faces brown from sun glaring off the snow. Across Alaska, snow reshapes into icy granules. River ice cracks and tumbles off to sea.

Fresh snow glistening with meltwater clings to the mountains. Snow shakes off in rolling avalanches. Waterfalls cascade, freed again from winter's icy spell.

Along highways birmed by banks of snow, trucks and snowmobile trailers crowd parking lots. Spring snowmachining is risky business. I hike a trail that squiggles along the side of a mountain. Below, the tide rushes in, tranforming the muddy inlet. Besdie the trail, a chickadee bathes in a puddle, dries off with drumming wings, and plunges in again.

Water is everywhere. Slippery puddles on the trail. Ruts along the snowy road. A creek tumbling down the hill. Like the chickadee, I delight in the melting wetness of it all.

Back home, it's Alaska week on Discovery Channel. Melting spreads across the screen in high definition, an ominous warning. A glacier calves, fortelling, the narrator says, disastrous global warming. Another glacier retreats - Lord help us all.

No mention that calving and retreating are normal glacial behaviors. No mention that scientists are divided over whether the current period of glacial retreat is a sign of global warming or part of a normal hundred-year cycle.

Fade to a grizzly fishing fat salmon from a stream. No, the grizzly's diet hasn't been affected by global warming. Not yet. But what if? Music builds to a sinister crescendo. What if the climate changed and there were no more salmon? What would the grizzly eat? Could the bears possible adapt to another food source?

I'm all in favor of preserving salmon habitat, but could we skip the high-drama footage and the horror-show tunes? If bears couldn't adapt to eating everything from trash to toothpaste, the camera crew wouldn't have needed to cache their gear at camp.

We're kidding ourselves if we think our collective consumptive footprint leaves no trace on this amazing planet. Global warming needs to be addressed. But hyperbole, half-truths, and trumped-up drama discredit the cause. Melting may portend disaster. But sometimes all it portends is hope - for spring, for life renewed, for yet another chance to get it right.

Make the distinctions, Discovery. Give us balanced facts, not just the ones that hype the show, and let us sort through to truth.

RESTLESS IN ALASKA

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 18:01:00 +0000

“Alaska changed my life.” It would be tough to find an Alaskan author who doesn’t share this sentiment with writer Kim Heacox.

In his musings on restlessness, Heacox reflects on what happened when the small community of Gustavus became a second-class city. Governing yourselves, the community reasoned, was part of growing up.

The paradox, as Heacox observed, is that America, for all its self-governance, in some ways refuses to grow up. With 5% of the world’s population consuming 25% of the world’s resources, we’re stuck in ego-centric, perpetual adolescence. Heacox watched Gustavus edge toward the credo “If our town isn’t growing, it’s dying.”

“In creating a city, I wondered if we were losing a community,” he notes in his essay. Full maturity, he says, involves living modestly and not succumbing to a fear of dying.

I agree with Heacox. Restlessness is a good thing. But it can catapult us toward self-destruction if we succumb without reflection. That’s why we need Alaskan authors.

THIRSTY IN THE RAIN: KIM HEACOX

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:24:00 +0000

Alaskan author Kim Heacox spoke last night in the season's final "Wildlife Wednesday," a multi-agency lecture series sponsored in part by Conoco Phillips. Hailing from Gustavus, population 440 or so, Heacox is one of Alaska's most notable nature writer/photographers. His books include The Only Kayak and In Denali.

Personable and sincere, Heacox read, with commentary, from his essay "Thirsty in the Rain: Reflections on Restlessness." He spoke with genuine love of Gustavus, a place where "green is more than a color - it's a texture," a place that's "the perfect mix of imperfections."

Where he lives, Heacox says, "Nature isn't just another channel on the TV. If you're not smart, it will kill you - and we like it that way." It's an attitude that comes off as arrogance when some folks hop on their homespun soapboxes and rail about Outsiders who should have known better.

Heacox turns it full circle, making us wonder about ourselves. A weird, sick part of us does like it that way. Or maybe it's not so weird. It's how we channel our restless spirits to Nature, who isn't so sure she wants to make friends.

"Alaska's still a frontier," Heacox says. "As such, it's transformative." If we allow it, and sometimes when we don't. Mostly when we stay thirsty, even in the rain.

TRAIL WISE

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:35:00 +0000

It's not a book, but it might as well be. The authors are many. Mushers racing to Nome are known to the world. But there were also indigenous people. Explorers. Prospectors. Railroad workers. Telegraph linemen.

Last night I attended a kick-off function for the four-year celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Iditarod Trail. One hundred is an arbitrary number, given archaelogical digs unearthing evidence of prehistoric use of parts of the route. But on Christmas Day in 1908, gold was discovered in the Iditarod Fields, ending the debate about which route was best for hauling supplies overland from the port town of Seward to the bustling gold rush metropolis that was Nome.

Ghosts must roam the trail. Dreams were chased, tackled, and lost here. Wilderness is quick to erase the human footprint. The once booming town of Flat, a regular stop for Pan American and Alaska Airlines in the 1930's, is now no more than a rag-tag collection of falling-down buildings, barely a comma's pause in the expansive forests, tundra and mountains that surround it.

Like all good books, the National Historic Iditarod Trail whispers of fleeting forms, wild dreams, and desperate souls.

SMALL GESTURES

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:37:00 +0000

This quote, ostensibly spoken by the character playing Harper Lee in the film "Infamous," made the rounds on a few writer listservs last week, generating a bit of discussion:

“America is not a country where the small gesture goes noticed. We’re not a country like France where charm, something light or effervescent can survive. We want everything you have and we want it as fast as you can turn it out. I read in an interview with Frank Sinatra, which he said about Judy Garland. ‘Every time she sings she dies a little.’ It’s true for writers, too, who hope to create something lasting. They die a little getting it right. And the book comes out and there’s a dinner. Maybe they give you a prize and then comes the inevitable and very American question: “What’s next?” But the next thing can be so hard because now you know what it demands.”

The small gesture means much, even if it's not at the forefront of the American mindset. To those who cherish nature, it's nearly everything. Alaska, like so many places, is a paradoxical mix of those who covet the small gesture and those who could care less. I like to think there are more of us small-gesture types, but that might be wishful thinking

Writers do die a little getting it right, not only wielding the broad brush of truth but dabbing their creations with the small gestures that encompass it. If we seek recognition - lasting recognition - then we may as well die all at once and get it over with. We know what this task demands, and we do it anyway. Not because someone asks "what's next?" but because we cannot contain our passion for beauty and truth and the sheer joy of creation.

WHY SHOULDN'T I BE OKAY?

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:44:00 +0000

This weekend I finished The Glass Castle, a memoir by Jeannette Walls. It's a mesmerizing read. Walls' irresponsible, dysfunctional parents were, as her mother put it, "addicted to excitement." Had they had more money, they would have run off to Alaska - it made her alcoholic father's short list of escape routes.

Reading the book reminded me of two exceptional Alaskan memoirs: Kim Rich's Johnny's Girl and Natalie Kusz' Road Song. It's been awhile since I read Road Song, which came out in 1991, and unfortunately it appears to be out of print. If you can get your hands on a copy, I recommend it heartily. Thankfully, Rich's amazing memoir is still available. She recounts a harrowing childhood, growing up in the underbelly of Anchorage during the 1960's, with a father as incredibly dysfunctional as Walls'.

Rich states clearly what Walls implies. People marvel at how well she turned out, despite the wild ride in her formative years. "What did you expect?" she asks. "Why shouldn't I be okay?"

Much fuss has been made over the dysfunctional family. I'm as much an advocate of good parenting as the next person. But I've yet to meet the perfect parent. Parents do the best they can with what they have.

I once heard a husband say to his wife - and I'm paraphrasing here - "Why don't you admit it? Your family was dysfunctional. Of course you're messed up." That sort of statement says more about the arrogance of the speaker than anything else.

Walls and Kusz and Rich traveled roads no child should have to go down. But they did more than survive. In telling their tales, they celebrate the triumph of the human spirit and the power of love.

APRIL SNOWS

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:51:00 +0000

Talk about weather. We do it everywhere, especially in Alaska, where our weather is something of a novelty. Our seasons don't jive with the tidy patterns learned in grade school. Winter begins early and ends late. Summer, fall, and spring sprint past in a blur.

Outside my window, an icicle has fallen into our latest blanket of snow. Each day it grows like a fat carrot, thickening like our winter, holding on. Down the street, a dozen mallards huddled beside an open spot in the pond, beaks tucked beneath their wings, blinking at the swirling snow. The next day they were gone, the open spot glazed with ice.

This winter, though odd weather-wise, has been the finest of the 29 I've spent in Alaska. There've been complaints about scant snow, snow too late, warming when it was supposed to be cold, cold when we thought it should be warm. I took my snow tires off too soon.

But every day was an adventure. No more waiting, longing, or planning my escape.

Weather changes. Finally I did, too, finding joy in what is, right now, and not concerning myself with what should be.

PAST TENSE

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:35:00 +0000

Two days ago, BP and Conoco announced that they're going to build a natural gas pipeline to haul Alaska's gas to markets in the Lower 48. They emphasized that this was not a plan; it was a project that begins now - the Denali project. Alaskans know how much political wrangling wraps around this simple announcement. It's the answer to prayer begged for on the bumper stickers: "Please, God, give us another pipeline. We promise not to waste it this time."

Pipelines are deja vu for Alaskans. We boom and bust, hoping for more boom and less bust on each go-round. We watch the road ahead, all the while glancing in the rear-view mirror.

All of which has me thinking about the past. One of my upcoming projects (Sasquatch, 2009 - in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of statehood) has me exploring Alaskan archives. Amazing places, these archives. Millions of photos, tens of thousands of family stories - all preserved. A person could spend a lifetime there and only skim the surface.

Paradoxically, in my own life, I'm trying to focus myself on the present moment, to not get caught up in the past or worry about the future. It's not as easy as it sounds. All sorts of pithy little things can be said about the past - how we learn from it, how we try not to repeat its mistakes, how it forms who we are.

As I pour over amazing photos from Alaska's past, I think of each as a moment captured not in time but outside of it, a snapshot of what was one person's present. The energy can't be relived or captured in two dimensions, but like a good poem or story, the images ring with truth.

Now if only we can figure out the truth about the pipeline, which will carry hopes and dreams, some of them twisted and wrong, along with a more mundane kind of energy.

noreply@blogger.com (Deb Vanasse) — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 16:38:00 +0000

American Idol for writers? Sounds like fantasy, but a new venture, WEbook, is giving it a spin. At the newly launched www.webook.com, writers can initiate either public or private collaborative efforts. Post your work on WEbook and you'll have a shot at being published - not vanity publishing, but royalty-based. I haven't checked out the legal fine print, but it's an interesting concept.

Writers complain that the current publishing model is broken. A multitude of problems prevail: unrealistic advances to big-name authors whose books don't earn out, mergers into mega-companies, overly-generous return policies, and the takeover of the book market by chain stores where publishers pay for books to be positioned.

As the traditional market becomes increasingly dollar-driven and exclusive, the far end of the market is busting at its seams. Print on demand machines can now print and bind books in 15 minutes, all at your local bookstore. And now comes online collaboration, with investors onboard.

Any takers, Alaska?