Anchorage Daily News

The metamorphosis of the University of Alaska Anchorage's graduate program in creative writing climaxes with an unfolding of wings this week.

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Sherry Simpson teaches creative writing at UAA.

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Jo-Ann Mapson

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Yesterday, students and faculty from around the country began a 12-day writing intensive that includes the university's Northern Renaissance Arts and Science Series of public lectures.

The evening readings and discussions represent the community arm of the new low-residency graduate program in creative writing at UAA. Instead of conducting weekly classes on-site, the department now lets students work independently wherever they live, engaging them through mentoring relationships with multiple writing professors, online courses and summer residencies in Anchorage.

Over the course of the next few weeks, authors as varied as Nancy Lord of Homer and Ron Carlson of California will read their work and talk about literature and the writing life during their public addresses.

When the department set about converting the program to a low-residency format, "we had a vision for it that included a more active engagement with the community at large, in the same way art sets out to engage the larger 'community' of human beings, not just other artists or scholars of the arts," said Anne Caston, a poet and core faculty member.

They also wanted to bring in speakers with diverse backgrounds and careers, she said, like the physician and poet Peter Pereria and scholar Oscar Kawagley, a former professor and Native elder.

Sherry Simpson, another core faculty member, said it makes sense to integrate science and the arts.

"Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that many Alaskans live life on the Renaissance model. A scientist might play in the symphony. An athlete might paint. A teacher might fish in the summers. I know lots of biologists who are really good writers. Native cultures operate with scientific ways of knowing and spiritual principles that aren't mutually exclusive.

" 'Renaissance' in the classical sense means 'rebirth,' and it seems to me that this Western notion of revival through intellectual and artistic pursuits is exactly what we could use more of right now."

Twenty-three new students from states as distant as Hawaii and Maine started the program this year, with four core faculty members and 12 associates involved in the residency. The program will double next year, enlisting even more writers and scholars as teachers and speakers, Simpson said.

NORTHERN RENAISSANCE ARTS AND SCIENCE SERIES OF PUBLIC LECTURES will take place from 7:45 to 9:15 p.m. through July 22 in Room 150 of the Fine Arts Building

at UAA. Doors open at 7:30 p.m.

Books written by the speakers will be on display and for sale in the UAA Fine Arts Building lobby. More information about each of the writers, the UAA low-residency program and the Northern Renaissance Arts and Science Series is available on the Creative Writing and Literary Arts Web site, cwla.uaa.alaska.edu.

TODAY

• RON CARLSON is the author of nine books of fiction, most recently his novel "Five Skies," as well as a guidebook to writing fiction. He directs the graduate program in fiction at the University of California Irvine.

MONDAY

• LAURIE WAX is a Master of Fine Arts candidate in fiction.

• DERICK BURLESON is a poet and professor of creative writing at UAF with several books to his name, including "Ejo: Poems, Rwanda 1991-94" and his latest collection, "Never Night." He lives in Two Rivers.

TUESDAY

• ANN CASTON is a poet and core faculty member with the graduate writing program at UAA. She has published two books of poetry and is working on a third. She is also writing a book about growing up Southern, "Deep Dixie."

• JUDITH BARRINGTON is a poet, memoirist and teacher who lives in Portland, Ore., and was born in the United Kingdom. Her works include the guide "Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art," as well as her latest book of poetry, "Horses and the Human Soul."

WEDNESDAY

• ZACK ROGOW has published five collections of poetry, three anthologies, four volumes of translation, a children's book and two plays. He teaches at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and has a sixth book of poems due out soon, "The Number Before Infinity."

• VALERIE MINER has written 13 novels and collections of short fiction and nonfiction, including memoir and essays. Her latest novel is "After Eden." She is a professor and artist in residence at Stanford University in California.

THURSDAY

• RICH CHIAPPONE lives along the Anchor River near Homer and is the author of a collection of short fiction, "Water of an Undetermined Depth." He teaches at the Kachemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College.

• LINDA McCARRISTON co-founded the UAA creative writing department and has taught at UAA since 1994. Her books include "Eva-Mary," short-listed for the National Book Award in poetry, and a forthcoming collection of essays and interviews, "Class-Colored Glasses."

SATURDAY

• OSCAR KAWAGLEY is on the Alaska Native Science Commission and is the author of "A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit." Born in Bethel, he is a retired professor of education at UAF and former CEO of an Alaska Native corporation.

JULY 20

• SHERRY SIMPSON is an essayist and core faculty member with the writing program at UAA. She has published two books of essays, "The Way Winter Comes" and her latest, "The Accidental Explorer: Wayfinding in Alaska," and is working on a book about bears and people.

• ERNESTINE HAYES teaches at the University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau and is the author of "Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir," winner of an American Book Award. She is a member of the Wolf House of the Kaagwaantaan Clan of the Tlingit.

JULY 21

• JO-ANN MAPSON is a novelist and a core faculty member with the writing program at UAA. She has published nine novels, including her latest, "The Owl & Moon Cafe," and is working on a new novel and a memoir.

• EVA SAULITIS teaches creative writing at the Kachemak Bay branch of Kenai Peninsula College in Homer. Her essays and poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and several anthologies. Her new book of essays is "Leaving Resurrection."

JULY 22

• PETER PEREIRA, a poet and family doctor living in Seattle, has published three books of poetry, including "What's Written on the Body." He's a founding editor of Floating Bridge Press.

• NANCY LORD, longtime resident of Homer, is the author of three short-fiction collections and three books of literary nonfiction, including "The Man Who Swam With Beavers" and "Beluga Days." She teaches part time at UAA and at the Kachemak Bay branch of Kenai Peninsula College. Northern Renaissance public lecture schedule

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