NEW ALASKAN AUTHORS

Today we're celebrating new Alaskan authors, a whole book full of them, from Alaska's Kuspuk School District along the middle Kuskokwim River. Last fall, mystery author Donna Moore visited Aniak, Kalskag, and Sleetmute as part of Alaska Sisters in Crime's Authors to the Bush program. There it's safe to say she fell in love with our state and the warm folks of the region.

Last night she returned to Anchorage, all the way from Scotland, with beautiful anthologies in tow - polished, professionally bound collections called "Imagine," featured stories and poems by Kuspuk students. Today Donna, on vacation from a day job in what she calls "the exciting and thrilling world of pensions," headed back to Aniak and surrouding villages for ten days of work with students. "I can't think of anywhere I'd rather go," she said.

Nick, an anthology contributor from Aniak who, like many villagers pushed out by rishing costs in the Bush, has relocated to Anchorage, was on hand at an Alaska Sisters in Crime reception last evening to see his published work for the first time. "She was the key to the door I didn't even know was there," said Nick, pictured above with writer Donna Moore.