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| I live in and write about Alaska. My Embers Series is set in an Alternate Alaska, and that world looks nearly identical to the one I call home. Everybody’s heard of Alaska, but not many people have actually braved the multi-flight, many-hour trip north to the future. I’ve been asked, “Is it really as beautiful as it looks?” and “How do you manage with all the snow?” Of course, Alaska is even more pristine, and magnificent, than any photograph can convey, and the truth is that we really don’t get all that much snow. Living here is, most times, a delight. |  |
However, Alaska is also home to what I affectionately term The Crazy Light. In the summer, in Anchorage, where I live, the sun burns brightly, almost aggressively, overhead for twenty hours a day, and only after 1:00 a.m. does it slip down to kiss the horizon. But instead of resting, it lurks just below the landline, and true dark never falls. (In the more northern towns, the summer sun never sets at all.)
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In winter, conversely, the sun barely breaches the horizon for a mere five hours a day. What rays it shines seem sluggish, and weak, as if it feels too sick to raise more than fingers from its earthen bed. By Winter Solstice, most times it’s dark, and at noon, during the rare cloud-free day, you can see faces pressed to windows all across downtown. |
The bi-polar sun profoundly affects my life, including my writing. In summer, I feel as if I could write forever, and sometimes I find myself writing for eighteen hours, and until long past midnight on work nights. Stories of love, of redemption, and tales with happy endings line up behind my eyes – and beg to be leaked out and given life through my tapping fingers.
| In winter, writing is harder, and what I pen is darker, more emotional, and I find my prose asking, and trying to answer, questions that my summer-joyful self would not contemplate.
A coal-faced Sadness, one with claws, walks the wintering Alaskan trails, and sneaks inside homes just as the Christmas decorations are being stuffed back into boxes. The only cure for its scratch is the sun, and sleep, and, for me, writing – bleeding it out through my words.
I wrote Blowing Embers, the second book in my Embers Series, during a dark time, both literal and personal. I poured into it the sadness of winter, and two recent losses, and used it to seek the hope that always comes to buoy me. There are scenes I sobbed while I wrote, and ones I reread twenty times because they filled me with the warmth of the summer sun each time. |
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I hope that Blowing Embers makes you feel, and makes you wonder, and leaves you with questions for which only uneasy answers seem likely. And I hope that it piques your appetite for a taste of the real Alaska as well. I promise you’ll never forget the beauty you find if your follow your heart all the way to the top of the world.
Website: http://laurijowen.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/laurijowen
Blog: http://laurijowen.blogspot.com
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What a beautiful discussion of how our physical environment as authors influences our literary landscapes. It’s also a lush and thought-provoking commentary on how organic our stories are, how our own surroundings and bodily rhythms become parts of the stories we tell.
I’m not a sun-lover – I burn too easily – but I’m not sure I could stand the winter months seeing so little of it.