Takotna

The Monday after Bouchercon, I left Anchorage for Takotna (left), to take part in the Alaska Sisters in Crime “Authors in the Schools” program, which sends mystery writers out to talk to students in communities across Alaska. “I left Anchorage” makes it sound easier than it was. I was surprised to see so many rifle cases and knives at the airport—things you need in the Interior, but not in Boston—and realized I needn’t have sweated stowing my Leatherman in my checked bag. Reaching the check-in desk, I was asked my weight. I misheard and answered, “Oh, not too bad. About five minutes.” Your weight, and that of your baggage, is all important when you’re traveling in the bush, where the planes are teensy and load balancing is something of an art.

And it was in the airport that I got the first sense of just how many more men there are than women. It’s not ten to one, as is popularly stated, but about 114 single men for every 100 single women. I don’t know what the statistics are for all men and women, or how this varies across the state, but I will say it was not only my bright red “I’m-not-a-deer” jacket (very useful in Maine, in hunting season) that made me stand out while I was in transit. I had more doors held for me and more offers to carry my bag in twenty-four hours of transit than I have…ever.

I first took a small commercial plane to McGrath (left), and from there, took an even smaller plane (just enough room for me, the pilot, my bag, and his deliveries) to Takotna. It was just a short hop, about twelve minutes, but complicated because of the weather: fog or clouds means you stay put. There aren’t many other ways to get to Takotna; presumably you can travel by boat when the river is high enough, and there are a few roads to other local villages, but pretty much small planes are it. I was later told that the airstrip in Takotna is one of the ten most dangerous in Alaska, and that seemed like a fair assessment to me: we came in over a ridge to land on a very short strip on top of a mountain. Not a lot of room for error, but the students later told me I got the best pilot, Mike. It’s neat to learn that they think of bush pilots the way other kids think of bus drivers. I expected to be nervous, but I really loved flying in the Cessna (I think it was).

Takotna (right) was established as a gold mining town in the early 1900s. Now, there are about fifty people there year-round, including about 9 students in the junior-senior high school (if I remember correctly, there were four in grade school). When you live in a small community, I learned that anything new draws attention, and me wandering around the village was definitely new.

While I was at the school, I spoke to the students about what goes into a mystery, about writing in general, and about archaeology and archaeologists (I also did a couple of talks, one for the writers in the village and one for the library group). Among other things, I gave the students a couple of writing prompts (“What would you tell an Outsider about Takotna?” and “Create a superhero or action hero character. Describe what his (or her) powers are, what he stands for and against”). What I like about doing writing prompts is that you see that there are many different ways of approaching the same subject (in this case, setting and character, respectively), and in this case, it was a great way for the students to tell me about their community.

The landscape around the community was gorgeous, even in the rain. When the clouds broke, you could see Mt. Takotna (right, below) across the river. I realized, though, that it is easy to think about looking at lovely landscape without thinking about what it is to live in it year round. It’s like when out-of-state college kids and their parents come to New England in the fall when it’s crisp and collegiate and the leaves are glorious colors and it’s the best place in the world to be. Then four months later, when the leaves are dead and gone and the mercury drops, everyone’s wondering what’s so appealing about a February nor’easter. It was definitely fall there in Takotna and it snowed the night I left, so I was left with a bare impression of what winter might be like (when I got home, it was an unseasonable 80 degrees in Boston, so the shock was acute).

During an Alaskan winter in the bush, it’s colder and darker longer than around here, and if you don’t plan your food and fuel consumption just right, you’re going to get into trouble. Imagine having to fly in all the food you don’t hunt or grow—fresh produce is at a premium—and then having to store it for a month (or months). You have to be a jack-of-many-trades, because there’s no corner garage to bail you out when something breaks, and the Geek Squad won’t make it out your way when your hard-drive crashes. I like and admire the idea of taking such responsibility for yourself, and I’m good at tactical and strategic thinking, but I’m not sure I would find that kind of life easy. The neat thing was that one minute I’d be hearing stories about hunting, trapping, fishing, and three- and four-wheelers, and the Iditerod (the mushers and dog teams stop in Takotna every winter), things that I know nothing about, and the next minute, we’d all be talking about things we had in common: cats, books, music, and movies.

I am very grateful for the opportunity to meet the people I did, and to see rural Alaska up close for a few days. Alas, I have to gainsay the prognosticators: I was never attacked by bears, black, brown, or otherwise. I didn’t actually see much wildlife at all while in Takotna, probably because of the season and the weather (I reckon all the critters were probably inside having cocoa because it was too rainy out). But the ones I did see, I’ll write about in the next post.

Next: Anchorage-Seward-Talkeetna

Bouchercon 2007 and the Anthony

I figure I’ve got about three posts on my trip to Alaska, and being that I trade in fiction, I’m going to take the writer’s prerogative and describe things out of chronological order.

The big news, for me: Ashes and Bones, my sixth Emma Fielding archaeology mystery, won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original at Bouchercon! I’m still stunned by this, and very happy (r: with my editor, Sarah). Actually, I hope that’s the take-away most people had from my acceptance (I won’t call it a speech) at the banquet: I was not cool. I stammered. I did, I think, remember to thank everyone, possibly more than once. But people said I seemed happy, and if that came across with my thanks, then I’m satisfied. Thanks again. And congratulations to all the winners and nominees!

BEST MYSTERY NOVEL: Laura Lippman, No Good Deeds, Harper

BEST FIRST NOVEL: Louise Penny, Still Life, St. Martin’s Press

BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL: Dana Cameron, Ashes and Bones, Avon

BEST SHORT STORY: Simon Wood, “My Father’s Secret,” Crimespree Magazine, Bouchercon Special Issue 2006

BEST CRITICAL NONFICTION: Jim Huang and Austin Lugar, Editors, Mystery Muses, Crum Creek press

SPECIAL SERVICES AWARD: Jim Huang, Crum Creek Press and The Mystery Company

(For a link to the Shamus, Macavity, and Barry winners, click here. )

The award itself is beautiful: a small oil painting of Denali by an Alaskan artist (I’m still trying to track down the details). It’s in my dining room, as it’s too nice to go in my office. (The office depicted on my website is a happy fiction, designed to make you think I’m a nice person. No one looking at my real office would think I’m nice. It’s most kindly described as a “lair.”)

Hic Sock Puppets…The rest of the convention was pretty busy. Thursday, I had an Author’s Choice section, and yes, I came across with the sock puppets. I made the mistake of joking to B’con organizer Dana Stabenow about interpreting a chunk of my short story “The Lords of Misrule” with puppets. Word got out. Without boasting, I can safely say I had the finest 18th-century sweat-sock puppets of anyone at the Anchorage Hilton that day. It would be easy for me to rationalize the sock puppets as highly functional social facilitators and tools for introducing complex issues of bygone culture, but really je m’amuse. It’s the idea of a sock with a tricorn hat using “Ever read any Jonathan Swift, baby?” as a pickup line that drives me to it.

(Thursday was also when I, with Mr. G and fellow Femmes Charlaine Harris and Toni Kelner, took a flightseeing tour over the Knik Glacier. For more pictures of that, please check out the Femmes Fatales blog.)

Friday afternoon, I was on a panel called “Raising the Genre Flag,” with (l-r) David Corbett, Laura Lippman, James Sallis, and moderator SJ Rozan. I really liked the way the discussion shaped up, more about how genre fiction succeeds in its ultimate goal— communication—than how we crime writers get no respect from “literary” reviewers. We talked about the history of criticism (I blame Samuel Richardson) and how the best genre fiction, whether mystery, romance, or science fiction and fantasy, allows society to address issues metaphorically when they might be too hot to tackle directly. We could have gone on for hours, and had some great questions from the audience.

Saturday morning was devoted to a panel on short stories, with Toni Kelner, Andrew Gulli, Tim Wohlforth, and Adam McFarlane. It was useful to me to hear how authors tackle short stories and consider what short stories are meant to accomplish—as well as how their venues have changed over time.

It was a fun Bouchercon, not only for the physical setting, but also for the way the panels were organized. I liked the three-track system (including the Alaska track). I haven’t even touched on the socializing that went on, catching up with old friends (r, with Margery Flax), and meeting new ones (though when I post about my pre-Bouchercon travels, we’ll see that started earlier than the convention…).

Sunday was spent getting Mr. G back to Boston and preparing to spend a few days out in the Alaskan bush. But there was one more treat: dinner with Toni and Charlaine, who bestowed a gift upon me in honor of winning the Anthony. I wonder how they knew?

Next installment: Takotna.