Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

North Words Writers Symposium? Yes, Please!

by | May 30, 2012 | Alaska, Culture, Reading & Writing | 10 comments

Greet­ings from the Juneau Airport!

Remem­ber that last hal­ibut trip we made? Turns out we nailed our poundage, got every­thing we need­ed. We spent the next few days clean­ing up – scrub­bing every last drop of hal­ibut slime and blood, tak­ing the long­line gear off the boat and get­ting it set up to be ready to go trolling for salmon on July 1. Joel and I moved our­selves back onto the Ner­ka, ready to think about our own boat projects.

This week­end, I final­ly wad­ed through 10 days’ of email. Cruis­ing through with one fin­ger hov­er­ing over the delete but­ton, I stopped short at a post from 49 Writ­ers.

“North Words Writ­ers Sym­po­sium,” read the head­line by Alaskan author Heather Lende. What’s that? Three days with my favorite Alaskan authors? The same writ­ers whose books fill my mem­oir proposal’s “Com­par­a­tive Titles” sec­tion, whose words I study devout­ly, awed by their evo­ca­tion of land­scape, com­mu­ni­ties and expe­ri­ences I rec­og­nize as my own? Reg­is­tra­tion lim­it­ed to 50 – a 1 to 3 faculty/participant ratio — with lit stars danc­ing in my eyes? Sched­uled per­fect­ly between my boat and fish­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties, only five days away?

My gods.

Once in a spe­cial while, oppor­tu­ni­ty appears spread-eagled before you, stun­ning with its bla­tant invi­ta­tion. That’s what I saw in that post. And with a fresh long­line check burn­ing in my wal­let and a part­ner who said, “Of course you should go,” I was in.

That’s not to say the trip plan­ning was easy. Hop­scotch­ing between remote com­mu­ni­ties in South­east Alas­ka takes effort. I spent the next two days fig­ur­ing out how to get from Bara­nof Island to Skag­way, one of only three com­mu­ni­ties in South­east Alas­ka that’s acces­si­ble by road. Thanks to one Boe­ing 737 – 400, two Cess­na bush planes, and one high-speed fer­ry, every­thing seems to have lined up just right.

Cap’n J bor­rowed a friend’s van to drop me off at the Sit­ka Air­port at 5:30 this morn­ing. By 6:30, I’d land­ed here in Juneau. In a few min­utes I’ll be board­ing a Cess­na Car­a­van to Skag­way – at nine seats, it’s one of the “big” planes.

My char­i­ot to Skagway.

Some deck­hands blow their hard-earned crew­share in the bar; I run off to a writer’s con­fer­ence. Excit­ed? Oh, yes. Anx­ious? That, too. Stand by for a deliri­ous report, bud­dies. Mean­while, do check out the North Words Writ­ers Sym­po­sium details here.

For my writer friends — any spe­cial requests? Ques­tions you’d like to ask if you were here? What dis­cus­sions would you attend?

10 Comments

  1. fish*wine*ski
    fish*wine*ski on May 30, 2012 at 11:47 am

    Have fun! Nice you get to have a lit­tle break from the season.

  2. fishingblues
    fishingblues on May 30, 2012 at 12:02 pm

    Yay!!! I’m so excit­ed for you (and a lit­tle bit jeal­ous of your abil­i­ty to be so spon­ta­neous). Have fun!

  3. grainsifter
    grainsifter on May 30, 2012 at 12:07 pm

    How incred­i­bly excit­ing for you! If that does­n’t fire up your writ­ing, I can’t imag­ine what would! Enjoy and soak up every moment…

  4. kathrynmartins1
    kathrynmartins1 on May 30, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    Tele, i’d say this is your sea­son, so to speak. Anoth­er smile from that fortune…Good for you, and enjoy – once you get through your obsta­cle course of actu­al­ly get­ting there 🙂 .

  5. Vicky Wood
    Vicky Wood on May 30, 2012 at 1:27 pm

    Yahoo!!!!

  6. Julie Farrar
    Julie Farrar on May 30, 2012 at 7:12 pm

    So glad it worked out. I just came from a writ­ing con­fer­ence of that size. It was over­whelm­ing and invigorating.

  7. Angela
    Angela on May 30, 2012 at 7:16 pm

    Amaz­ing how per­fect­ly things lined up to allow you to attend. Clear­ly it was meant to be. A huge step for­ward in your writ­ing career. Way to go.

  8. patriciasands
    patriciasands on May 30, 2012 at 7:48 pm

    Oh, I just know you are going to love it! We will all be eager­ly await­ing the details!

  9. Claire 'Word by Word'
    Claire 'Word by Word' on May 31, 2012 at 11:49 pm

    Fab­u­lous oppor­tu­ni­ty, well done for mak­ing it hap­pen and have a won­der­ful time! Enjoy the dose of inspi­ra­tion and ride it long.

  10. Tele
    Tele on June 12, 2012 at 6:09 pm

    A belat­ed and sin­cere thanks for every­one’s encour­age­ment! It was indeed a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence… Back in Sit­ka for 10 days now, I’ve had some good time to process, and am get­ting close to hav­ing a post to share with you all. Here’s hop­ing that the sum­mer brings equal­ly enrich­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties to you!

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  1. AfterWords: Reflections on the 2012 North Words Writers Symposium « Hooked - [...] of you heard how excited I was, on the way to Skagway. So should I tell you about the…