Dear reader,

It’s been a long time, but I’m excited to share a few things with you:

• My essay about fossil hunting with my mom, the poet Julie LeMay, in the Talkeetna Mountains was published in the Wall Street Journal this week. You can read it here https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-risks-of-fossil-hunting-in-alaskas-wilderness-1485961200

• Also this week, I celebrated the fifth anniversary of the publication of The Snow Child! In honor of the day, I posted some photographs on the publisher Little, Brown and Company’s account over at Instagram — https://www.instagram.com/littlebrown/

• Tonight I’m doing a dinner talk with my mom here in Palmer, Alaska, about the publication of her collection of poetry, The Echo of Ice Letting Go. The event, coordinated by Fireside Books, is sold out, but copies of her book are available through Fireside Books and can be ordered online or through your local bookstore.

• And finally, just a reminder — while I don’t post regularly here on this blog anymore, I am sending out TinyLetters. My most recent letter was a look back at the last five years of The Snow Child. You can sign up to receive the letters here https://tinyletter.com/EowynIvey

Cheers!

Eowyn

The mid-day sun viewed from our house last week. We will soon lose all direct sunlight as the sun falls too far below the mountains. Winter has come to Alaska, even if the snow hasn’t.

Dear northern reader,

Any plans to be in Palmer, Alaska, this weekend? Or Anchorage next month? Talkeetna?

Now that my US and UK book tours are wrapped up, I have a chance to do some book events around my home state. Here’s my schedule. If you’re in the area, I hope you’ll stop in.

Dear reader,

As you’ve probably noticed, I’m not using this blog as much lately. But I recently sent out a TinyLetter in celebration of Alaska Day, Oct. 18. If you haven’t already signed up, you can go here https://tinyletter.com/EowynIvey to receive this and future letters from me.

Also, I’m headed to NYC and Hoboken, NJ, this weekend on another leg of my Bright Edge Tour for my new book. You can visit my website events calendar here https://eowynivey.com/events/to learn more.

A few other news items:

• A blushingly kind column from Charles Wohlforth in the Alaska Dispatch News http://www.adn.com/opinions/2016/10/15/seeking-the-mystery-behind-alaskas-greatest-living-novelist/
• A review of Bright Edge from Great New Books http://www.greatnewbooks.org/2016/10/19/to-bright-edge-world-eowyn-ivey/
• Congratulations to fellow Alaskan writers for their recent Alaska Literary Awards: Daryl Farmer, creative nonfiction, Fairbanks;
  Sara Loewen, creative nonfiction, Kodiak; Lucas Rowley, playwriting, Anchorage; Nicole Stellon O’Donnell, poetry, Fairbanks.

And here’s a parting look at my Bright Edge bulletin board over my desk. It’s almost time to clear the slate.

Cheers!

Eowyn

Dear brave reader,

I was initially a little scared to launch my own blog. What on earth would I write about? Who would read it? But then I was lucky enough to write a few posts for one of my favorite sites, 49Writers.  I talked about great books I had read and my writing partnership with my mom. Readers commented about their own experiences.  This isn’t so bad, I thought. It’s actually kind of fun.

Then I thought back to my years writing columns for the Frontiersman newspaper — articles about ice skating on frozen lakes and the long-awaited arrival of spring in the far north. A blog would be a chance to share these kinds of stories with neighbors even farther afield. I’ll write about the terrific independent bookstore, Fireside Books where I work, and my passion for books. I’ll also write about the everyday aspects of an Alaskan lifestyle that people from other places might find interesting, or ever exotic.

This will be a place for a few good, old-fashioned bear stories (every Alaskan has one or two) …

… as well as updates on the release of my upcoming book. My debut novel, THE SNOW CHILD, will be published in hardcover Feb. 1 by Reagan Arthur Books/Little, Brown & Co.

These next few months will be an all new adventure for me, so please come along. We’ll see where we end up. As my dad once said to me, “It’s time to kick off the Birkenstocks and put on the hiking boots.”

Cheers,

Eowyn