When I tell people about myself, the one thing that seems to make their eyes light up most consistently is when I say I was born and raised in Alaska. Not sure why, but that always seems to get a response, most often one of maybe half a dozen comments. So here are my basic replies:
Yes, it’s a beautiful state, and I highly recommend that you visit sometime.
No, I’ve never watched any episodes of Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch or Northern Exposure.
I don’t really have an opinion of Sarah Palin because I left well before she was elected.
Yes, there are places in Alaska where the sun doesn’t rise for three months in winter and then doesn’t set for three months in summer, but it wasn’t like that where I grew up in Juneau.
No, in Juneau it doesn’t get down to -40 degrees. In fact it’s pretty rare to get below 20 degrees, which is quite cold enough.
And no, I’ve never been on a dogsled, although I do love the story of how the Iditarod got started.
Alaska was a good place to grow an imagination, with lots of trees to climb, snow castles to build, sticks to turn into swords, rocks to turn into thrones, and deep forests that just might hide something incredible. I started writing in High School when I finally realized that the difference between the stories I told myself and the novels I loved reading was that the professional authors took more time to properly describe things, and after reading all that lovely descriptive writing for the past 10 years--Hey! I can do that!
I got a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing (which I don’t really recommend. See the Advice for Authors section) from Pacific University in Oregon, worked at various jobs for 10 years, and then went back for a second Bachelor’s degree in Film from the University of Utah. The second one might turn out to be slightly more useful. I also studied for a year at the University of Essex in England, in fulfillment of a long-held dream to find out what it’s like to live in the UK. (It’s also beautiful, and riding on the top of a double-decker bus is still one of my favorite things.)
At present, I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I consistently look forward to the arrival of autumn, and dread the coming of summer.
Yes, it’s a beautiful state, and I highly recommend that you visit sometime.
No, I’ve never watched any episodes of Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch or Northern Exposure.
I don’t really have an opinion of Sarah Palin because I left well before she was elected.
Yes, there are places in Alaska where the sun doesn’t rise for three months in winter and then doesn’t set for three months in summer, but it wasn’t like that where I grew up in Juneau.
No, in Juneau it doesn’t get down to -40 degrees. In fact it’s pretty rare to get below 20 degrees, which is quite cold enough.
And no, I’ve never been on a dogsled, although I do love the story of how the Iditarod got started.
Alaska was a good place to grow an imagination, with lots of trees to climb, snow castles to build, sticks to turn into swords, rocks to turn into thrones, and deep forests that just might hide something incredible. I started writing in High School when I finally realized that the difference between the stories I told myself and the novels I loved reading was that the professional authors took more time to properly describe things, and after reading all that lovely descriptive writing for the past 10 years--Hey! I can do that!
I got a Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing (which I don’t really recommend. See the Advice for Authors section) from Pacific University in Oregon, worked at various jobs for 10 years, and then went back for a second Bachelor’s degree in Film from the University of Utah. The second one might turn out to be slightly more useful. I also studied for a year at the University of Essex in England, in fulfillment of a long-held dream to find out what it’s like to live in the UK. (It’s also beautiful, and riding on the top of a double-decker bus is still one of my favorite things.)
At present, I live in Salt Lake City, Utah, where I consistently look forward to the arrival of autumn, and dread the coming of summer.