Active Voice: Writers Respond

Shauna Potocky is a poet and painter who spent a decade as park ranger in Yosemite National Park. She is now a devoted resident of the community of Seward, Alaska. Along with the Kenai Peninsula, it is the inspiration for her second collection of poems and artwork, Sea Smoke, Spindrift and Other Spells. On a visit to Juneau she talked with host Katie Bausler about poetry, community and the value of sharing art. We're releasing this podcast just in time for National Poetry Month 2025. Shauna's poetry card is full this month with readings and appearances in Sitka April 10th and 12th  and the annual Seward Poetry Festival April 21-26. Please subscribe and follow the 49 Writers Active Voice podcast on Apple, Spotify and 49writers.org. And help spread the word by liking it on podcast platforms or sharing with friends and family. This conversation was recorded at KTOO Juneau. Music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlarz. .

Katie's guest Josh Fortenbery plays live tracks and reflects on the writing of his debut album. Southeast Alaska grown and produced, No Such Thing as Forever is getting strong reviews in Americana circles from across the country to across the pond. Fortenbery's songwriting is informed by both his immediate and the greater human family. “I'm just trying to be honest about my grief, anxiety, and carelessness, and hope that resonates with people,” he says. “I'm trying to remember what ties me to the folks I love and folks I've never met.” Josh is a member of the Muskeg Collective, a team of Alaskan string band leaning singer songwriters and musicians uplifting each other's writing and playing. Please subscribe and follow the 49 Writers Active Voice podcast on Apple, Spotify and 49writers.org. And help spread the word by liking it on podcast platforms or sharing with friends and family. This conversation was recorded at KTOO Juneau. Music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlarz.

Katie's guest for this episode is Kate Troll, author of a memoir with an unusual focus. It chronicles, as she entered her seventies, the discovery of two siblings Kate never knew existed. And how these discoveries both challenged and strengthened her newfound family and her relationships with the siblings she grew up with. All in Due Time, A Memoir of Siblings, Genealogy, Secrets and Love, can be found at bookstores in Alaska and online.  Please subscribe and follow the 49 Writers Active Voice podcast on Apple, Spotify and 49writers.org. And help spread the word by liking it on podcast platforms or sharing with friends and family. This conversation was recorded at KTOO Juneau. Music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlarz. I'm Katie Bausler.

In this episode, host Katie Bausler chats with Lucian Childs, author of Dreaming Home, a powerful collection of six linked short stories on the outing of a gay teenager by his younger sister, his father's violent reaction and how that trauma ripples through the course of four decades. The stories, set in Texas, the San Francisco Bay Area and Florida, deftly weave issues like conversion therapy, Queer Youth homeless, combat veteran PTSD, and the AIDS pandemic. Since its summer 2023 release Dreaming Home has made the best books lists of the New York Times, The Globe and Mail, LAMBDA Literary Review and more.

In her debut album, Sisters of White Chapel, Alaskan writer and musician Annie Bartholomew brings a fresh approach to traditional folk music, channeling the under told stories of some of the working women of Alaska's Gold Rush. And as she tells 49 Writers Active Voice producer and host Katie Bausler, sex work was the only choice for many women in late 19th century mining towns. Bartholomew wanted to know more about their lives. So she wrote an album of short stories. A few of the haunting and catchy tunes are featured in this episode, kicked off by Bartholomew's adaptation of The Cuckoo, with her on Clawhammer banjo.

Beth Ann Mathews, her husband Jim and nine year old son Glen were living a full and vibrant life in Alaska's capital Juneau, which, as she describes lies, “between the ocean and a retreating glacier, a dynamic landscape that challenged and nurtured us.”  She could not have imagined the challenges the family trio would overcome when Jim sustained a rare type of stroke brought on by a relatively common task. They're the focus of her debut book, "Deep Waters, a Memoir of Loss, Alaska Adventure and Love Rekindled."  You can find this work of nonfiction on relationship resilience at your local bookstore or online. To learn more visit the author's website at bethannmathews.com

Acclaimed author Melinda Moustakis on her debut novel, Homestead. In this first 49 Writers Active Voice Podcast taped LIVE,  we  go back in time to the last years before Alaska became a state, and the tumultuous relationship of unlikely homesteaders. Inspired by the story of the author's grandparents,  Homestead was reviewed "absolutely remarkable" by the Historical Novel Society. And "spare, exquisite, tough and lovely" by the New York Times. Pre-book signing chat with host Katie Bausler followed by audience questions. Recorded March 21st, 2023 at Hearthside Books along Gastineau Channel in Juneau, Alaska! 

Tommy Orange on his commended debut novel "There, There", which tells the intertwining stories of Native Americans en route to a pow wow in Orange's hometown of Oakland, California. He discusses what to expect from the highly anticipated sequel,  the current reckoning of the past genocide of Native Americans, white supremacy and the quest for hope versus hate.  Since its 2018 publication,"There, There" has been placed on academic reading lists and a TV series based on the book is in the works. "There, There" has been honored with many awards, including the American Book Award. PEN/Hemingway judges deemed it, "as acutely attuned to our cultural and political condition as it is to the indelible legacy of violence that brought us here." 

Linnea Lentfer discusses and reads passages from her debut novel. "Hold the Tide" is told by a young girl raised like Lentfer, hunting deer and gathering berries in remote and wild Southeast Alaska.  Unlike the author, her protagonist grew up in a prior century, the child of a shunned and threatened single mother. Lentfer began writing her book when she was  12, the same age as her narrator. "Hold the Tide" was published as she graduated from high school and began college. "More than a page-turner, more than a great read, this is a significant and beautiful book about the courage of women in a cold, but life-graced land." -Kathleen Dean Moore, Author, Earth's Wild Music

Ohio author Bonnie Proudfoot discusses and reads passages from her debut novel with Active Voice host and producer Katie Bausler. Goshen Road is told through the alternating voices of a working class family in rural Appalachia over the course of a generation. The book holds stories of a far from easy life in a time of societal transition in one of the most culturally rich and misunderstood parts of the United States. Bonnie Proudfoot moved to the Appalachian region in 1979 and has lived there since, teaching for many years at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio. She is a fiction writer, a poet, and a glass artist proud to be associated with the Women of Appalachia project. Her novel, Goshen Road  was named Book of the Year from the Writer's Conference of Northern Appalachia, is a Women's National Book Association's Great Group Reads selection,  and was long listed for the 2021 PEN/Hemingway Award for Best Debut Novel. Learn more about the author and where to find her book here: https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/Goshen+RoadPlease subscribe and follow the Active Voice podcast on Apple, Spotify and 49writers.org. Music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlarz. Original music for this episode by Erin Heist.   

Thanks to writer and musician Erin Heist for sharing her creative journey on the 49 Writers Active Voice podcast, an audio forum from 49 Writers on the role of writers and artists in these challenging times. Learn more about Erin and where to hear her EP, Another Rainy Day at erinheist.com 

In conversation with Active Voice host and producer Katie Bausler, Emily Wall touches on her current project, chapbooks in the personas of three renowned women, the difference between good and bad poetry, the annual literary journal she oversees, her meeting with esteemed poet William Stafford (who wrote a poem about it), and what initially drew her to poetry. Learn more about Emily Wall and her poetry at her website.

Writers and artists discuss their work in these challenging, changing times with host and producer Katie Bausler on the 49 Writers Active Voice podcast. Episode 15 guest Kathryn H. Ross is the  author of Black Was Not A Label, a memoir collection of essays and poetry chronicling her life from early childhood to her mid-20s. Themes include racism, identity, faith and their impact on Black Americans. Learn more about Kathryn and her writing on her website, speakthewritelanguage.com. Please subscribe and follow the Active Voice podcast on Apple, Spotify and 49writers.org. Music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlarz. 

We’ve reached a last straw in the struggle for justice for black people in this country. Add to that mass inequality magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic. What’s an artist, writer or activist to do? Writer’s Block co-owner Vered Mares and Active Voice host Katie Bausler discuss elevating the voices of black and brown writers. And Mares experience with racism and freedom of religion as a high school student in Denton, Texas, which led to a Supreme Court catalyst case in the early 1990’s.

Environmental Historian and author Bathsheba DeMuth explores the past to better understand the present. As the COVID-19 pandemic settles in for the foreseeable future, the Brown University Professor  and host Katie Bausler look back to the flu pandemic of 1918, and infectious diseases brought by European explorers that devastated indigenous peoples going back hundreds of years.  And the impact of political denial on public health.

Tired of division, strife and the feeling that half the country just doesn’t get it? Want more joy in your life? In the world? Then you might like to meet our first guest songwriter, Jackie Venson. Host Katie Bausler caught up with the Austin based guitarist and vocalist on her latest visit to Southeast Alaska. The  conversation began with how her manager came up with the title of Jackie's latest album, JOY, released in 2019. 

Susan Orlean is best known for her books The Orchid Thief, Saturday Night, Rin Tin Tin, and most recently, The Library Book, published in October, 2018. Now out in paperback, it’s a story she was compelled to tell about the largest library fire in US history and how it renewed a lifelong love and appreciation for the magic of libraries. 49 Writers Active Voice host and producer Katie Bausler met with Susan Orlean when she was the keynote writer at the 2019 North Words Writers Symposium in Skagway, Alaska. Original music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlarz.

Author Annie Boochever on Fighter in Velvet Gloves: Alaska Civil Rights Hero Elizabeth Peratrovich. Boochever collaborated with this story of Elizabeth Peratrovich's life for young readers with her son, Roy Peratrovich Jr. This highly recommended work arrives at a time when issues of race and racism are clearly unsettled. Show Links: Annie Boochever Fighter In Velvet Gloves 49 Writers

49 Writers co-founder and author Andromeda Romano Lax has published her fourth novel, Plum Rains. Andromeda lives for a while in the places where her novels are set, for this one in Japan and Taiwan. The book takes place a decade from now and takes on several issues, including robots, immigration, privilege, and human connection. The Paris Review lauds it for, “engineering a world that is a character in itself, impossibly complex and daunting in its believability.” When Andromeda began her career two decades ago, she was a non-fiction writer of well-researched columns and articles. It was the global jolt of 911 that turned her to fiction. Show Links: Andromeda Romano Lax Plum Rains 49 Writers

Gustavus based writer Kim Heacox sounds a warning bell and gives hope for the future in this packed exchange with host Katie Bausler. Kim's wilderness activism has infused his writing and photography of than a dozen books over the past twenty-five years. His novel, Jimmy Bluefeather, won the 2015 National Outdoor Book Award. And his 2005 memoir, The Only Kayak is rife with prescient realizations about the times we live in. His latest focus is on writing opinion pieces for daily newspapers . Show Links: Kim Heacox 49 Writers

State Writer Laureate Ernestine Hayes has spent a good part of her life bearing witness. The author of the American book award winning, Blonde Indian and the Tao of Raven, Hayes is known for bringing out the connections between all things. She is also a member of the faculty at the University of Alaska Southeast. She says to better understand our present we need to look our past, and the history of oppression and genocide of indigenous peoples. Show Links: Ernestine Hayes Blonde Indian The Tao of Raven 49 Writers

Travel writer and author of the acclaimed Global Soul, Pico Iyer is an eternal optimist in a seemingly pessimistic world. Pico Iyer is also a contributor to major news publications, the author of two novels and nine works of nonfiction. His latest effort is The Art of Stillness, Adventures in Going Nowhere. Pico’s Ted Talks have millions of viewers and he’s been hanging out with the Dali Lama for 44 years. Attendees at the 2018 Northwords Writers Symposium in Skagway, Alaska were lucky enough to hang out with Pico as he was the keynote guest. When they are not traveling, Pico and wife Hiroko live in Japan and California. In between a symposium session, Pico shared his refreshing perspectives on making time for writing and humanity. Show Links: Pico Iyer Ted Talk Elle Magazine 49 Writers

When not spending time in endangered and beautiful places or teaching writing, Pam Houston lives with horses, goats and dogs in her cherished home of almost 30 years, an off the grid ranch in the high country of Colorado. In this episode, Pam tells host and producer Katie Bausler that it is metaphors that get her through this seminal moment for the natural world. And discusses her latest book, Deep Creek,Finding Hope in the High Country.

Beauty-of fauna, flora and most of all-place is part of everything she writes, says Joanna Lilley. The author of a short story collection and two books of poetry, Lilly grew up in the UK and lives in Whitehorse Yukon, Her first novel, Worry Stones, published in late 2018, is set in in Canada, Britain and the Scottish highlands. And as she tells Active Voice pocast host Katie Bausler, the places she has lived are as relevant to her writing as the people who raised her and the times in which they lived.

Former commercial fisherman and Alaska writer laureate Nancy Lord’s work’s been infused with the political and the environmental since well before the 2016 election. Her 2011 book Early Warming showed Alaska on the front lines of climate change. Her latest novel, PH, tells the story of ocean acidification through all too human characters, humor and grace. Nancy’s also a teacher and mentor to writing students in Homer and in the University of Alaska Anchorage MFA program. And as she told 49 Writers board member and podcast host Katie Bausler, she has strong feelings about the responsibility of writers in these times. Original music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlasrz.

In this installment 49 Writers audio series with Alaskan writers, Southeast Alaskan Vivian Faith Prescott discusses her original stories and poems with Active Voice host Katie Bausler. Prescott utilizes multi media, including print, spoken word, video, audio and her blog, Planet Alaska. Her first book of stories, the Dead Go to Seattle was published in 2017. New York times reviewer Garth Stein calls it, an important, essential work that should be required reading for all thoughtful, imaginative people. Vivian Faith Prescott is a 5th generation Alaskan who lives at her family's fish camp just north of Ketchikan in Wrangell, where she was born and raised. Original music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlasrz.

In this initial Active Voice podcast, 49 Writers board member Katie Bausler interviews Alaskan writer and Faith of Cranes author Hank Lentfer. The Gutavus, Alaska resident discusses his upcoming biography of fellow Southeast writer Richard Nelson, and a light outlook in dark times. Original music by Liz Snyder and Alex Kotlasrz.