Authors and Guest Teachers We Have Hosted
Meet Our Tongass Mist Writing Headlining Retreat Writers, Class Teachers, Editors, Guest Authors,
And the magic behind Tongass Mist Writing; Founder and CEO Ruth Underhill
Ruth Underhill
Tongass Mist Writing
Founder and Organizer
Ruth Underhill founded Tongass Mist Writing in 2019, inspired by her first year in Sitka, Alaska. She is grateful to live in and share Tlingit Aáni with writers and guests to Southeast Alaska; the unceded lands of Tsimshian, Tlingit and Haida Alaska Native peoples. Ruth's vision for Tongass Mist Writing is to create a catalyst for creative community which is safe for everyone, influenced by Tongass rainforest awe and a force for good in the world through the voices empowered to write in our community relationships, classes, events and retreats. Ruth went to writing school at Vermont College of Fine Arts where she earned her MFA in writing in 2019. She is a registered nurse who spent twenty years working as an inpatient nurse across nine states, as a staff and contract nurse, staff nurse and manager, preceptor and educator. Most of Ruth's nursing career was dedicated to perinatal health of women and infants. She also spent two years in geriatric nursing, a space full of elders with great stories! Ruth grew up on three continents . She spent her early childhood Chicago, Illinois. Her family worked with international schools in Yemen and Kazahkstan for the latter ten years of her childhood. She is a Midwesterner on the outside with a deep rooted love of her other childhood homes in The Land of Sheba and on The Silk Road. Her loves for culture, identity and value of place is rooted in her exposure to community identities around the world and the U.S.A. She believes in the universal power of story and the common ground of people everywhere which creates community across racial, gender, religious, political, age and various other identity and ability differences. When Ruth is not creating community for other writers, she can be found scribbling in her own notebooks and composing essays about the intersection of wilderness awe, travel, healthcare, an expat childhood and war. Ruth leads the weekly writing circle for Tongass Mist Writing each Monday morning 11am-Noon AKST on Zoom and teaches other classes. She organizes community events such as hospital staff mental health art events, generative writing cafe strolls, writing workshops in Southeast, Alaska and more. Ruth provides editing and writing coach services through Tongass Mist Writing as well as serving at the Library Director in Tenakee, Alaska and teaching for writing for the University of Alaska Southeast in Sitka.
Amy Butcher
Amy Butcher is an award-winning essayist and the author of two books, including, most recently, Mothertrucker (Little A, 2021), a hybrid work of memoir and literary journalism that interrogates the realities of female fear, abusive relationships, and America’s quiet epidemic of intimate partner violence set against the geography of remote, northern Alaska. The book earned critical praise from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, CBS News, The Chicago Review of Books, The Oxford Review of Books, Booklist, and others, and early excerpts were awarded an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council. "[Mothertrucker] is a rattling good story...shot through with poignant insights," wrote The Wall Street Journal, and Kirkus Reviews called it "a searching and deeply empathetic memoir" and "a sobering reflection on verbal and psychological abuse [that] honors the healing power of female friendship and questions the nature of divinity beyond its constricting patriarchal manifestations.” Publisher’s Weekly called the book "tender and gripping," writing, “[Mothertrucker] explores myriad issues with nuance and grace, including Indigenous rights, violence against women, religious hypocrisy, and environmental concerns.” Her first book, Visiting Hours (Blue Rider Press/Penguin-Random House, 2015), earned starred reviews and praise from The New York Times Sunday Review of Books, NPR, The Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, and others. Excerpts of her new book were awarded an Individual Excellence Award by the Ohio Arts Council. Additional essays have been featured on National Public Radio and the BBC, anthologized in Best Travel Writing, awarded grand prize in the Iowa Review Award as judged by David Shields, and been awarded notable distinctions in the 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021 editions of the Best American Essays series. Her essays have appeared in Granta, Harper's, The New York Times "Modern Love," The New York Times Sunday Review, The Washington Post, The Denver Post, The Iowa Review, Lit Hub, Guernica, Gulf Coast, Fourth Genre, and Brevity, among others. She earned her MFA from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program and is the recipient of Colgate University's Olive B. O'Connor Creative Writing Fellowship in nonfiction as well as grants and awards from the Vermont Studio Center, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, the Academy of American Poets, the Ohio Arts Council, Word Riot Inc., and the Stanley Foundation for International Research. She is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Denison University and teaches annually at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and the Sitka Fine Arts Camp in Sitka, Alaska. She splits her time between Columbus, Ohio and Alaska.
Rita Banerjee
Rita Banerjee is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. She is editor of Disobedient Futures (University Press of Kentucky, Forthcoming) and CREDO: An Anthology of Manifestos and Sourcebook for Creative Writing (C&R Press) and the author of the poetry collection Echo in Four Beats (Finishing Line Press), which was nominated for the 2019 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize at the Academy of American Poets, named one of Book Riot’s “Must-Read Poetic Voices of Split This Rock 2018”, and was selected by Finishing Line Press as their 2018 nominee for the National Book Award in Poetry. Banerjee is also the author of the novella “A Night with Kali” in Approaching Footsteps (Spider Road Press), and the poetry chapbook Cracklers at Night (Finishing Line Press). Her dissertation The New Voyager: Theory and Practice of South Asian Literary Modernisms is available through ProQuest. She is the co-writer of Burning Down the Louvre, a forthcoming documentary film about race, intimacy, and tribalism in the United States and in France. She received a 2021-2022 Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council for her new memoir and manifesto on female cool, and one of the opening chapters of this new memoir, “Birth of Cool” was a Notable Essay in the 2020 Best American Essays, and another chapter from her new memoir, “The Female Gaze,” was a Notable Essay in the 2023 Best American Essays. https://ritabanerjee.com/about/
Deanne Battle
Deanne Battle is a multi-genre storyteller and teacher from Queens, NY. She is an English instructor for the City University of New York (CUNY) and has an MFA in Fiction from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Deanne is working on a novel entitled SWEET SETHE’S SYMPHONY and a film script entitled FRESH TO DEATH. You will currently find Deanne busy on Substack (https://substack.com/@deannebattle) with a side quest as a talk show host at THE COMPOSITE WITH DEANNE BATTLE (Instagram/TikTok). Deanne holds 15 years of experience teaching English and the Humanities to middle school, high school, and college students. She lives in Queens, NY.
Molly Barari
Molly holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and an EdD in Adult Education from the University of South Dakota. Molly feels honored to have helped hundreds of South Dakotans begin writing their life stories through my “Heirlooms: Creative Life Writing” workshop, both as a South Dakota Humanities Council Speakers Bureau scholar and through other community-based workshops. When Molly is not writing or teaching, She loves exploring the Black Hills and watching classic horror films. www.mollybarari.com
C.L. Brenton
An MFA graduate of Vermont college of fine arts, C. L. Brenton writes about women on the brink, about mothers that struggle to fit into traditional molds, and women who fight hard to create, endure and sustain their families through life’s most intense trials. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Colorado Review, A3 Review and Witness magazine. She is fond of really nice cats, chocolate chips in just about anything, and mothering her two young sons in Carmel, California.
Corinna Cook
Corinna Cook is an essayist. She is the Juneau-based author of Leavetakings (2020) and Permafrost Is an Archive—and Other Inheritances from the Alaska-Yukon Borderlands (2026), an essay collection about art, reconciliation, and the land. Corinna is a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship awardee, a former Fulbright Fellow, an Alaska Literary Award recipient, and a Rasmuson Foundation grantee. She is a graduate of Pomona College and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and she holds a doctorate in English and Creative Nonfiction from the University of Missouri. Her current book project is a life history on the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission. Corinna teaches nonfiction in Alaska Pacific University’s low-res MFA program in creative writing. More at corinnacook.com. Editing As a developmental editor, my feedback centers on actionable technique. I identify gaps in thinking and opportunities to enrich manuscript content; I have special interests in global structural choices as well as sentence style; and I often coach clients on specific craft decisions that set the course for a manuscript’s relationship to its readers.
Cheryl Crabb
Cheryl Crabb is an award-winning author and journalist. Her debut novel, The Other Side of Sanctuary, was published in 2020 by Adelaide Books. Her short story, The Long Ball, also appeared in the Adelaide Literary Award Anthology 2019. In 2026, she received an honorable mention from the Springfed Arts Writing Contest for her personal essay, What I Left in Nikko. Her work as a journalist has appeared in various publications, including The Hartford Courant and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution where she reported as a staff writer. She also penned a guest essay for The Detroit Free Press. She is a 2017 graduate of Vermont Collage of Fine Arts MFA in Writing program and holds a master’s degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. A Wisconsin native, she now lives with her family in metro Detroit where she is a member of Detroit Working Writers.
Chanel Dubofsky
Chanel Dubofsky, has taught writing for Lilith, Vermont College of Fine Arts (where she earned an MFA in Fiction in 2015) and online. He non-fiction writing on reproductive health, religion, and pop culture can be found in New York Magazine, Mashable, and others. She appears in the documentary My So-Called Selfish Life, about the choice to be childfree, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Kristin Knight Pace
Kristin Knight Pace moved to Alaska in 2009 with her two dogs. That winter, she took care of a sled dog team and a remote cabin in the Alaska Interior. She fell in love with dog mushing. Together with her husband Andy, she started Hey Moose! Kennel, a long-distance racing kennel made up of 30 loving dogs on ten acres outside Denali National Park. Kristin has since finished both the Yukon Quest and Iditarod Trail 1,000-mile sled dog races. Kristin has published one memoir, THIS MUCH COUNTRY, which debuted in March 2019 from Grand Central Publishing, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. Kristin has continued her Alaska journey by learning to fly planes into Alaska's most remote locations. Keep an eye out for more writing on the horizon. Kristin is represented by Brettne Bloom of The Book Group.
Brendan Jones
Raised in Philadelphia, Brendan Jones attended Columbia and Oxford Universities, and teaches creative writing at University of Alaska, Irkutsk Technical University in Russia, and Stanford University, where he was a 2013-15 Wallace Stegner Fellow. He has published work in The New York Times, The Guardian, Washington Post, GQ, Smithsonian, Patagonia, Ploughshares, Fine Woodworking, National Fisherman, Adventure Journal, Narratively, The Seattle Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Narrative Magazine, and recorded commentaries for NPR. His novel The Alaskan Laundry, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, won the 2017 Alaskana prize, was recognized by Oprah and nominated for the Center of Fiction debut prize. He recently returned from Siberia, where he spent a year with his family as a Fulbright Scholar. His novel Whispering Alaska, published with Penguin/Random House in October 2021, received a starred review from Booklist, and won the 2022 Green Earth Book Award for Young Adult Eco-lit. He lives in Sitka, with his wife and three daughters, one dog, and three to six chickens.
Heather Lende
Heather Lende Heather Lende’s latest honor is an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Alaska, Anchorage for significant contributions to literature and public service. She earned a B.A. in history from Middlebury College and an M.F.A. in creative writing from UAA. Lende is the author of bestselling and critically acclaimed memoirs, including Find the Good, If You Lived Here, I’d Know Your Name, Take Good Care of the Garden and the Dogs and Of Bears and Ballots. Her books focus on her experiences and observations in Haines, Alaska. She was also the Alaska Writer Laureate 2020- 2024.
Sarah Leamy
Sarah Leamy is a British novelist living in the Southwest,USA and Baja in Mexico. After exploring various communities and subcultures across Europe and the Americas, Leamy’s writing focuses on people and places, curiosity-driven travels, and her observations of all the different ways we live. Her fiction shares stories of outsiders, loyal dogs, incredible landscapes and unconventional women in search of belonging in the wild Southwest. Leamy’s characters navigate complex themes of gender, sexuality, class, power, poverty, drugs, and mental health in unexpected ways. With vivid descriptions of the American Southwest, its landscapes, animals, and lifestyle, Leamy’s distinctive voice brings you into the visceral experience of those struggling to find a sense of connection. Her work is known for its strong independent women who challenge social norms, unpredictable plots, and richly drawn characters. With a lifetime on the road, Leamy focuses on encouraging others to explore more By publishing Wanderlust Journal, an online hub for personal travel stories, the podcast of the same name, and managing Wild Dog Press which publishes a select few travel memoirs. Sarah also presents at Overland Expo and other such travel expos on such topics as being a solo explorer, taking pets along, the Southwest Backroads, and the business of writing and publishing. Sarah’s artwork captures her quirky style and observations, whether the cartoon-like dogs and cats, the urban sketches or the colorful folk art paintings. You can find her work here on the website and it’s for sale through Etsy.
Ksm Lx'sg̱a̱n
Ruth Hollows
Urban Tsimshian textile artist Ksm Lx'sg̱a̱n Ruth Hallows weaves in the Chilkat and Ravenstail traditions of Northwest Coastal People. Born in Tacoma, WA surrounded by their family’s cedar basketry, they dreamt of traveling to Alaskan community to learn to weave. Ruth moved progressively further from the northwest coast until their family settled in the Sonoran Desert. Ruth’s dreams slept until the world shifted in response to the pandemic and their personal life shifted in alignment. Together with Northwest Coastal community, they overcame financial, temporal, and geographical barriers to weave Ravenstail during lockdown with Kay Field Parker. Since 2021, they continue to gather weaving skills, including Chilkat weaving with mentorship from Wooshkindeinda.aat Lily Hope; spruce root basketry with Aanutein Deborah Head; cedar basketry with Ksgooga Gwisgwaasgm Gyemk Janice Jainga-Lonergran and Tl’aakahlwaas Vicki Soboleff; and pattern design with Naakil.aan Hans Chester and Steve Brown. Ruth’s first solo project, Our Sisters Dance with Us, was recognized Best of Ravenstail Category at the Sealaska 2022 Celebration Juried Art Show. Haida artist and master Chilkat weaver Kujuuhl Evelyn Vanderhoop awarded an honorable mention to Ruth’s Unmasking – A Chilkat Inspired Self-portrait during the Sealaska 2024 Celebration Juried Art Show. Their two most recent pieces were juried into the 2025 Heard Museum Indian Fair & Market Best of Show Competition where their Ravenstail ensemble We Remember the Voices of All Our Ancestors earned the Carol Ann Mackay award for First Place in Weaving & Textiles, Cultural Attire. Ruth maintains a daily practice of Chilkat and Ravenstail weaving with thier son, spinner and weaving apprentice. Jay Hallows in their home on Tohono O'odam traditional lands near Phoenix, Arizona. Source: Burke Museum Author Bio
Elizabeth Mayorca
Elizabeth Marquis~Mayorca received an MFA in Creative Nonfiction and Poetry from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU, where she received the Rod Marriot Playwriting Award. Her poem “A rock shaped like a house, found in the mountains,” was the 1st prize winner of The Poets for Human Rights Award. “Sewing in Syria” was published in New Monologues for Women by Women, through Heinemann Drama. Her plays have been produced at New York University, the State Theater in Austin Texas, and Golden Thread Productions in San Francisco. With her sister Francesca Greene, she created Sister Symmetry a book of original poetry and paintings. She edited and wrote the introduction and afterward for Sea of Images (The Collected Poems of Walter John Hawver: Soldier-Patriot-Poet). Most recently her essays were published in Ovunque Siamo, New Italian-American Writing, Adelaide Literary Journal, and Maine Review. She is writing a book about her relationship with her New York-born Calabrese grandmother and the myths of motherhood passed down from her ancestors. Elizabeth has taught for Hugo House in Seattle and Tongass Mist Writing in Sitka, Alaska. You can find her at www.ElizabethMayorca.com
Melissa Matthewson
Melissa is the author of Tracing the Desire Line, from Split/Lip Press (2019). Her nonfiction has appeared in Guernica, AEON, Literary Hub, The Rumpus, Oregon Humanities, Longreads, Mid-American Review, Bellingham Review, River Teeth, Terrain.org, American Literary Review, and Catapult among other publications. She teaches in the low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program at Eastern Oregon University. You can find her at melissamatthewson.com and check out her dynamic list of publications here! https://melissamatthewson.com/publications/
Melissa Matthewson
Debbie Miller has lived in Alaska for 40 years, and developed a passion for writing nature books about the extraordinary wilderness and wildlife that surround our home near Fairbanks. When she looks out her office window, she may see a moose walking by, chickadees or gray jays at the bird feeder, or a fox on the prowl. During the early years, Debbie taught school in Arctic Village, a small village in the Brooks Range. She learned about the Athabaskan Alaska Native culture, the natural history of the region, and the wonders of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or ANWR. For many years her family explored this incredible place, studied the great caribou herds, and observed wolves, grizzly and polar bears, migratory birds, and other Alaska animals. Her many outdoor adventures and encounters with wildlife have inspired her to write nature books for children and adults. Debbie works closely with Jon Van Zyle, an outstanding Alaska wildlife artist who has illustrated ten of my children's picture books. Jon has lived in Alaska for 40 years and he has a deep love for the wilderness and wildlife of our state. He turns simple words into captivating paintings that authentically reflect the beauty of Alaska's environment. Find our much more about Debbie's extensive work in wildlife education and conservation at www.debbiemiller.com
Megan Okkerse
Megan Okkerse is a candidate for an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is trained in the Amherst Writers & Artists writing workshop method and has taught both on her own and for Charlotte Center for Literary Arts, Kindred: Charlotte, Noda Yoga, and Open Heart Searchery.
Shauna Potocky
Shauna is a familiar friend to Sitka. She has attended prior Tongass Mist Writing events in Sitka, visited Sitka as the July 2024 Sitka Conservation Society Artist in Residence on the Pony Farm where she wrote poetry inspired by Tlingit Aàni awe and created paintings likewise inspired. You can learn more about Shauan at https://www.seasmokearts.com/bio/ Interested in learning more about Sitka Conservation Society? Check out their beautiful homepage at www.sitkawild.org/ourstory
Mira Ptacin
Mira Ptacin is a literary journalist, memoirist, New York Times best-selling ghostwriter, editor, and professor of creative writing. She is the author of the award-winning memoir Poor Your Soul (Soho Press, 2016), which was named a best book of the year by Kirkus Books, where it received a rare “starred” review. She’s also the author of the genre-blending book of feminist history, memoir, and ethnography, The In-Betweens: The Spiritualists, Mediums, and Legends of Camp Etna (Liveright-W.W. Norton, 2019), which the New York Times lauded as the best book to read during a pandemic. Mira’s writing frequently appears in the New York Times, New York Times Book Review, Vogue, Poets and Writers, Harper’s, Tin House, LitHub, and more. She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, where she was editor-at-large of their literary magazine, LUMINA. Mira lives on Peaks Island, Maine, and is currently working on her next book. MiraPtacin.com
Jennifer Pun
Jennifer is a film & television producer. Her producing credits include the award-winning tween series How To Be Indie, the Canadian Screen Award-nominated feature Fall and the cult horror The Void. Most recently, she produced the wilderness thriller Cascade (Netflix Canada Top Ten) starring Sara Waisglass (Ginny & Georgia). When not producing, she is writing. Jennifer holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Art. Her focus is short stories and her work can be found on Numero Cinq, Past Ten, and in the short story anthology Modern Metamorphoses: Stories of Transformation among others.
John Roedel
John Roedel is a comic who unexpectedly gained notability as a writer and poet through his heartfelt Facebook conversations that went viral and became an Amazon best-selling book titled, Hey God. Hey John. He is the author of five books—Hey God. Hey John, Any Given Someday, Untied: The Poetry of What Comes Next, Remedy, and his latest work, Upon Departure, which explores through poetry the concept of our grief as a natural wonder that terraforms the landscape of our world in increments. Offering a sincere and very relatable look at his faith crisis, mental health, personal struggles, perception of our world, and even his fashion sense, He teaches at universities and retreat centers across the US, blending his trademark comedy with creative exercises, journaling, dialogue, and introspection to help people fearlessly embrace and share their personal stories.
Basmah Sakrani
Basmah Sakrani is a Pakistani-Canadian writer whose narratives explore displacement, diaspora and loss. She is a 2024 Veasna So Scholar in Fiction, and a finalist for the 2023 Kinder/Crump Short Fiction Award. Her work has also appeared in Best Small Fictions 2022, The Baltimore Review, Split Lip Press, Past Ten, and other journals. Basmah works in advertising in New York City. You can follow her on Substack https://basmah.substack.com/
Susan Slocum Dyer
Susan Slocum Slocum-Dyer is a nationally published watercolor painter and poet. For the past several years, while working as an elementary teacher, she carried both her pen and paintbrush across the Alaska coastal tundra and throughout its boreal forest. She very recently relocated to Portland, Oregon You can find her at https://aseaofwatercolors.blogspot.com & on Instagram @parkandmonroe or Facebook as Susan Slocum-Dyer
Ruth Van Reken
Ruth E. Van Reken is a second generation adult TCK and mother of 3ATCKs. She speaks nationally and internationally on issues related to global family living. She is co-founder of Families in Global Transition. In addition to her memoir Letters Never Sent about years spent in boarding school, Ruth is co-author of Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds.
Robert D. Vivian
Robert Vivian is a professor of English and creative writing at Alma College in Michigan. He is the author of four novels as well as two essay collections, Cold Snap as Yearning and The Least Cricket of Evening, all available from the University of Nebraska Press, as well as the collection of dervish essays, Immortal Soft-Spoken, and All I Feel Is Rivers.
Sue William Silverman
Sue William Silverman is an award-winning author of eight works of nonfiction and poetry. Her new book, forthcoming Jan. ’24, is Acetylene Torch Songs: Writing True Stories to Ignite the Soul. Her previous book, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences, won the gold star in Foreword Reviews Indie Book of the Year Award and the Clara Johnson Award for Women’s Literature. Other books include Love Sick: One Woman’s Journey through Sexual Addiction, made into a Lifetime TV movie; Because I Remember Terror, Father, I Remember You, which won the AWP Award; and The Pat Boone Fan Club: My Life as a White Anglo-Saxon Jew. She teaches at the low-residency MFA in Writing Program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. www.SueWilliamSilverman.com
Lily H. Tuzroyluke
Lily Tuzroyluke is an indigenous writer from Alaska and Canada. She is a graduate student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and previously served in Tribal Government. Lily now resides in Anchorage, Alaska. Lily is drawn to how writers can ground their work in lived experience, cultural memory, and relationship to land — especially for those who are newer to writing and learning to trust their own voice. What people are saying about her debut novel Sivulliq (Ancestors): David James, Anchorage Daily News "Aided first by an enigmatic woman named Nasauyaaq who is immensely skilled on the land, and then by her uncle Ataŋauraq, who is similarly adept at sea travel, Tuzroyluke uses a sometimes heart-pounding pursuit to show how the Inupiaq created technologies and developed understanding of their land that were quite complex, and how this knowledge was transmitted through generations. And she does this largely without distracting from the plot line. Using their distinctive voices, she also develops Kayaliruk and Ibai into individual, multilayered characters." -David James, Anchorage Daily News Shehla Anjum, Alaska Native Quarterly "Tuzroyluke deftly mixes action with lyrical scenes of the landscape... She shows the beauty of her land with words that make it come alive." -Shehla Anjum, Alaska Native Quarterly Publisher's Weekly Indigenous writer Tuzroyluke's stirring debut evokes the beauty of the Arctic and sheds light on a dark corner of U.S. history. In the spring of 1893, a smallpox epidemic devastates Indigenous communities along the north shore of Alaska. After lighting a funeral pyre for the bodies of her husband and immediate family, Kayaliruk heads north in a dog sled with her three children to find other survivors. Along the way, they suffer a violent encounter with Naluagmiut (white men), who kidnap her only daughter. Badly injured and near starvation, Kayaliruk is determined to save her daughter and follows the men's American whaling ship with her two sons, first to Herschel Island, an outpost in the Beaufort Sea, then to Siberia. The story of Kayaliruk's journey alternates with that of Ibai, a Black whaler from Massachusetts, whose fate will eventually merge with Kayaliruk's. Tuzroyluke explores a chapter of American expansion rarely included in history books, illuminating both the rich cultural diversity predating U.S. colonialism in the Arctic and the sordid legacy of whalers who overhunted and spread diseases. The ice is as omnipresent a character as either protagonist: "unpredictable, feared and a living creature" that can shift, crack, and overwhelm. Tuzroyluke's beautiful novel crackles with a fierce love of her people and their land.
Rhonda Zimlich
Rhonda Zimlich facilitates writing workshops, teaches writing at American University, and contributes to a lively literary community along the eastern seaboard (as a recent transplant from the Pacific Northwest). She is a reader for The Maine Review and guides writers and creative folks through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. She also hosts one-off workshops with specific topics such as accessing your emotional story and world-building. Lately, Rhonda is obsessed with the book Wonderworks, by Angus Fletcher. Rhonda has published several short stories and essays while completing her novel manuscript Raising Panic, a coming-of-age tale about two young girls who witness the 1978 PSA crash in San Diego, California. She is currently working on a memoir about running eight marathons after her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis.
