RadioFreePalmer has posted a podcast of my August 3rd author interview on the Morning Show with Mike Chmielewski. The 16 minute interview includes questions about the house (Cabin 135) and the process of writing Cabin 135.
Alaskan author, writer, and former State Writer Laureate Nancy Lord has reviewed Cabin 135 for the Anchorage Daily News: A memoir of unusual shape centers on a Matanuska Colony home
Please consider sharing Nancy Lord’s very thoughtful review with your friends.
Bringing my book, Cabin 135, to the attention of potential readers is a primarily grass roots effort. Thanks for any sharing! ~Katie
Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska is available through independent bookstores.
Please support your nearest “brick-and-mortar” independent bookseller.
Writing is a journey. Perhaps lonely, or at least alone, navigating terrain of the writer’s mind. My journey to write Cabin 135, first the living and later the writing, spanned many decades. In December 2020 the book was published by University of Alaska Press. Since then there have been several readings: one sponsored by Roundabout Books in Bend Oregon, another co-hosted by UA Press and Fireside Books (Palmer, Alaska), and most recently on June 21, a reading put on by UAF Summer Sessions & Lifelong Learning together with the UA Press. With this latest reading, I decided on a different strategy, that rather than a sampling of sections that would convey the flavor of the old house and surrounding environment, I would read a section about a road-trip to the Arctic coast. I chose this section because it suggests cold and ice (or at least the hope of ice), perhaps providing momentary respite from the massive and record-smashing heat that has settled over the western United States. Now, I think if my goal had been to provide escape from the heat, reading a different passage would have had a chillier effect:
“Overhead, birch limbs messily thread the leaden sky. Snow crystals stack and intermesh along branches until the frozen-water weight becomes too much. A bough twitches and snow cascades on top of me, chilling my face and numbing my neck. After the frosty veil settles, the birch trunks—some striated white, some amber—appear starker than before.” (from Cabin 135)
Returning to my initial statement that writing is a lonely journey, I was thrilled to read the review of Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska by Valorie Grace Hallinan on her blog “Books Can Save a Life.” Valorie considers the writing process and reflects back to me meaning that she found in my writing. Not an in-person conversation but the hint of a conversation I’m already looking forward to, about writing process and ideas.
In the spirit of this conversation, between two writers (and two blogs), I quote from Valorie Grace Hallinan’s review of Cabin 135:
A couple of ideas I want to highlight here: that each draft is a kind of quasi-meditation. I have never thought of the writing process in this way, but Katie’s insight helps me better appreciate the richness of our quirky, individual writing paths; our creative instincts, given free reign, possess a kind of logic and aesthetic sense that may surprise us.
And, secondly, across your own life span, which dramas, scenes, and moments stand out? We choose from an infinite number of moments to tell our stories. And yet we each have within us a multitude of stories. -Valorie Grace Hallinan, Books Can Save a Life
Indeed. Choices? Distractions? Either way, many many drafts.
Hi everyone! Hope your summer is going well! Sorry for the last minute posting but there will be a “Cabin 135” reading tonight–Monday June 21, at 7:00 PM ALASKA TIME. If you have time, please consider being part of the virtual (or in-person if you happen to be in Fairbanks, Alaska) audience for this week’s University of Alaska-Fairbanks “Author’s Corner” event. My “Cabin 135” reading and Q&A session, at 7:00 PM ALASKA TIME, Monday June 21, 2021, will be live-streamed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Follow-up note: my reading on June 21 was live-streamed. I’ll add a link to the recording when it becomes available.
University of Alaska Press and Fireside Books (Palmer, Alaska) sponsored a reading and discussion of my book, Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska. Due to the pandemic, the March 19, 2021 event occurred as a Zoom Webinar with an audience scattered across the U.S. — east coast to west coast, Alaska and Hawaii.
University of Alaska Press has shared the recording of this event and I have posted it on my YouTube channel and my Facebook Writer page. The recording lasts one hour. After the introductions, I read from several sections of Cabin 135. The second half of the event comprised a discussion of Cabin 135 with Peggy Shumaker, UA Press, Alaska Series Editor, as well as addressing questions from the audience.
Publishing update as of February 5, 2021:
Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska by Katie Eberhart was published December 15, 2020 by University of Alaska Press as part of the Alaska Literary Series.
Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska can be purchased at independent booksellers like Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska, Title Wave Books in Anchorage, Alaska, and Roundabout Books in Bend, Oregon—or the University of Chicago Press. Cabin 135 is also available through Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
Please support your nearest independent bookseller.
On my Nature & Literature blog, there’s a new post, Book versus Blog, where I consider the long process of writing Cabin 135, including a dive into the archives.
Book versus Blog references two older Nature & Literature posts: Procrastinations, Deletions, and Questions of Intent (2013) and Where Did the Last Year Go? (2016).
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Publishing update as of January 25, 2021:
Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska was published in December 2020 by University of Alaska Press as part of the Alaska Literary Series. Cabin 135 can be purchased at independent booksellers like Fireside Books in Palmer, Alaska and Roundabout Books in Bend, Oregon or ordered from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and the University of Chicago Press.
Please support your nearest independent bookseller.
Foreword Reviews has posted a review of Cabin 135:
“Cabin 135 is Katie Eberhart’s contemplative account of several decades in Alaska, through which she both reflects on the past and on environmental changes that could impact the future….” (Read more at Foreword Reviews.)
The publishing date for Cabin 135, A Memoir of Alaska is set for December 15, 2020. Pre-ordering is available through most independent bookstores as well as Internet-based booksellers. (More info.)
Composer, Mark Greathouse, has posted several of my arrangements of his compositions on SheetMusicPlus.com. The SMP page for each piece includes a description, preview of the score, and a recording.
Copy Cat – Quartet for 2 Violins, Flute and Accordion
Copy Cat — Quartet for 2 Violins, Flute and Accordion is by turns lightheartedly playful, somber, and meditative. Variations touch on jazz, gypsy, and orchestral themes. The accordion provides rhythm and low register support. The violins draw out the themes often quite hauntingly but also with a section of lighthearted pizzicato. The flute part alternates between high melodies and mid-range countermelodies. This arrangement of Copy Cat is an intermediate piece that is entertaining and fun to play.
*It’s strange to be mentioning ensemble music when “Zoom” meetings have replaced in-person rehearsals. We are, however, looking forward to better times in 2021.