Faculty
Skagway Awaits
Winter in Skagway
We're taking this opportunity while the streets are quiet and we're warm in doors to develop this thing.
February 22, 2011: Howard Blum to keynote
North Words Writers Symposium
Registration now available online for second annual writers conference in Skagway, Alaska on June 1-4, 2011
Best-selling nonfiction writer Howard Blum will be the keynote speaker of the second annual North Words Writers Symposium in Skagway, Alaska on June 1-4, 2011.
Blum, whose new book The Floor of Heaven is being launched by Crown Publishing in April, will join several recognized authors from the 49th State including Heather Lende, Seth Kantner, Lynn Schooler, Deb Vanasse, Kim Heacox, and current Alaska Writer Laureate Peggy Shumaker.
Blum has previously published seven nonfiction books and one novel, including the New York Times bestsellers American Lightning, Wanted!, The Gold of Exodus, and Gangland. Blum is currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, has written for the Atlantic, Harper's, and Rolling Stone, and while at the New York Times was twice nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. He lives in Connecticut. His new book has special significance for Alaska-Yukon, as it follows three figures from the Klondike Gold Rush.
Other 2011 panelists include screenwriter David Hunsaker, Alaska magazine managing editor Tim Woody, University of Alaska Press editor Elisabeth Dabney, and regional writer-historians Daniel Henry and Jeff Brady, along with conference coordinator Buckwheat Donahue of the Skagway Convention and Visitors Bureau.
In addition to engaging in panel discussions about writing and publishing, registered symposium participants will get to travel to Lake Bennett on the White Pass & Yukon Route and participate in other activities in and around historic Skagway and nearby Dyea.
Registration is now open on the symposium website, www.nwwriterss.com. A maximum of 50 participants will be accepted for this year’s symposium.
The event is sponsored by the Skagway CVB with generous support from Alaska Magazine, The Skagway News Co., and Sgt. Preston’s Lodge.
About Skagway:
Skagway is a study in contrast and survival. Our roots date back to when the coastal Tlingit Indians of Southeast Alaska first used the area 10,000 years ago as a trading route to the Yukon interior. They called it “place of the bunched up water (from the wind).” A few white settlers followed in the 1800s, but there were few visitors here until the Klondike Gold Rush hit in 1897-98. Skagway was the focus of the world as the primary jumping off point for nearly 100,000 stampeders bent on reaching the gold fields in the Yukon. This rollicking event shaped the future of the north as we know it today.
Skagway is not just about its storied past. It’s a small community at heart that survived with the changing winds – and it does blow here often. The White Pass & Yukon Route railroad outlasted the gold rush and other booms and bust of the past century. Now instead of hauling freight and supplies to the Yukon, it hauls more than 300,000 visitors a year. The town is also the headquarters for Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Established in 1976, the park has preserved many of the town’s gold rush buildings, maintains the historic Chilkoot Trail, and is a vast cultural resource. The town also has several museums and authentic historical attractions, as well as many wilderness adventure tours that take you out of town and into the mountains at our doorstep.
Over the past 35 years, Skagway’s tourism has grown, and with it the number of artists and writers in the community. The first NWWS symposium in 2010 was a great success, and the community is ready to host it again.
For more information on registration, panel topics, schedule, and planned activities:
www.nwwriterss.com
Conference contact:
Buckwheat Donahue
Phone:
907-983-2854
or email carlin_donahue@hotmail.com
2011 Keynote Speaker: Howard Blum
American author and journalist, Blum has worked as a reporter for the New York Times, where he earned two Pulitzer Prize nominations. Since 1994, Blum has been a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.
Blum has authored nine books. Several of his books were non-fiction bestsellers, including Gangland, and Wanted!, The Gold of Exodus, The Brigade: An Epic Story of Vengeance, Salvation, and WWII and the upcoming Floor of Heaven a true story of the American West and the Klondike Gold Rush.
Greetings from Skagway, Alaska!
We invite you to converge this summer with a community of writers in search of inspiration and refreshment under the Midnight Sun.
North Words Symposium offers a unique opportunity for writers to nurture interrelationships with other writers and thinkers in a spectacular place. We aspire to build upon a tradition of literature that reflects language and life on the frontier.
Our excitement grows as the schedule unfolds.
Special symposium events include discussions and lunch on the famed White Pass and Yukon Route railway. An all-day excursion to Lake Bennett features participant readings, workshops, and walks through historic Gold rush sites set amidst startling beauty. Also, participants will spend a morning with park interpreters in Dyea on a 2-mile walk on the famed Chilkoot Trail. We think you won't want to miss it.
The sizzle of North Words Symposium derives from electricity generated by people like you. A dozen published writers from the North contribute to panel discussions relating to genre, process, and business of writing. Gather in renovated 110-year-old Goldrush buildings to take part in memorable talks with fascinating people.
We will soon announce our special guest, a writer of national distinction, as well as our panelists, so keep an eye on this website as it develops.
As a collaborative effort of Skagway Borough, U.S. National Parks, and Alaska Magazine, the Symposium offers nothing less than solid craftwork, thoughtful discussion, and experiences that will last a lifetime.
Please join us!