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Sunday April 19, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am PDT
This panel of celebrated Alaskan writers - Annie Wenstrup, Erica Watson, Jeremy Pataky, John Messick, and Susanna Mishler - will explore how the state has shaped and defined their work. From drawing upon dramatic natural environments to representing local communities across the country’s largest state, these authors sketch portraits of a wild and wonderful Alaska in their writing. Join us for readings from their latest works and a conversation centered around place and belonging, disruption and climate change, and how to write about historical, political, and social ties to the land. Erica Watson’s writing bridges boundaries of the human nonhuman worlds and designated public lands, and John Messick has worked both on the page and in wildlands to cultivate and share a more sustainable environment. Annie Wenstrup, a Dena’ina poet and Indigenous Nations Poet Fellow, poems contain the lived experiences of an Alaska Native person and the histories of unresolved colonial violence in “an authorial reckoning with what remains.” Susanna Mishler is the author of Termination Dust, a poetry collection which foregrounds Alaskan image and lyricism, which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award. Jeremy Pataky, founder and publisher of Porphyry Press, the most remote book publishing company in North America, will lead the conversation.

*This event is virtual and will premiere on our YouTube channel at the time scheduled above. Here is the link!

Purchase the authors' books via our official festival bookseller Auntie's Bookstore!

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Authors
avatar for Erica Watson

Erica Watson

Erica Watson’s writing explores ideas of community, self, political action, and climate change at the intersection of the human and nonhuman worlds, and draws from experience living in lifelong intimacy with designated public lands. Her writing has received support from Fishtrap... Read More →
avatar for John Messick

John Messick

John Messick is a writer, teacher, husband, and father. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor of Writing at Alaska Pacific University, where he teaches composition and creative writing. He has also worked building hiking trails, fighting wildland fire, and shoveling snow in... Read More →
avatar for Annie Wenstrup

Annie Wenstrup

Annie Wenstrup (Dena’ina) is the author of The Museum of Unnatural Histories and a 2025 Whiting Award recipient. She held a Museum Sovereignty Fellowship with the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center (Alaska office) supported through a Journey to What Matters grant from the CIRI Foundation, and was an Indigenous Nations Poets Fellow in 2022 and 2023. Her poems... Read More →
avatar for Jeremy Pataky

Jeremy Pataky

Jeremy Pataky is a poet, writer, and publisher. The author of Overwinter (University of Alaska Press, 2015), his poetry and essays have appeared in Colorado Review, Black Warrior Review, The Southeast Review, Cirque, Camas, Ice Floe, Chatter Marks, and many others. He’s contrib... Read More →
avatar for Susanna J. Mishler

Susanna J. Mishler

Susanna J. Mishler is the author of Termination Dust (Red Hen/Boreal Books) which was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, Kenyon Review Online, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Her work has been supported by The Rasmusson Foundation, The Alaska State Council on the Arts, and the Kenyon Review Writers Workshop. She is a journey-level electrician and teaches her trade to local union apprentices in Anchorage, Alaska... Read More →
Sunday April 19, 2026 10:00am - 11:00am PDT
YouTube Channel: EWU's Get Lit! Programs

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