How To Love This World?
2008 theme with visiting writer Sandra Alcosser
August 12-18, 2008
McCarthy, Alaska
About the Workshop
Join with other writers to revivify your creativity within the gorgeous mountain setting and ghostly historic remains of McCarthy, Alaska and the Wrangell-St.Elias National Park & Preserve. Discover a melting glacier, write beside a quiet beaver pond, or witness nature's reclaiming of the famous Kennecott Mill. The week's activities include craft talks, seminar discussions and critiques workshops led by visiting poet Sandra Alcosser along with field excursions, and daily writing circles led by workshop director Nancy Cook. Craft focus will be on creative nonfiction and poetry. Other activities include individual staff conferences, staff and participant readings and free time to explore the area. The workshop is limited to 16 participants, allowing an intimate and supportive writing community in an idyllic, inspiring setting.
About the Workshop Staff
Tell me the landscape from which you come, and
I will tell you who you are. -Jose Ortega y Gassett
Sandra Alcosser
The 11th Annual Wrangell Mountains Writing Workshop is pleased to host nationally acclaimed poet
Sandra Alcosser. Montana's first poet laureate, Sandra Alcosser has published seven books of poetry,
including A Fish to Feed All Hunger and Except by Nature selected for the National Poetry Series and the
Academy of American Poets James Laughlin Award. "Alcosser writes like an Annie Dillard without the
drift toward transcendence, a Gary Snyder without Zen or ecological theory. Pragmatic, autonomous, she
implies a kind of connection between woman and nature which is both old and new." -Alicia Ostriker,
Poetry She currently serves as the National Endowment for the Arts' first Conservation Poet for the
Wildlife Conservation Society and Poets House, New York. As a highly praised teacher, Alcosser
founded and directs the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Writing at San Diego State University
each fall. She has also directed SDSU's International Writers Summer Program at National University of
Ireland and served on the faculties at University of Michigan, University of Montana, and Pacific
University and a writer-in-residence in Glacier National Park, Yosemite National Park and Central Park,
New York. She received two individual artist fellowships from NEA, and her poems have appeared in
The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Poetry and the Pushcart Prize Anthology. A resident of Florence,
Montana, this summer will be Sandra's first trip to Alaska.
Nancy Cook, Workshop Director
Nancy Cook has led field programs for the Wrangell Mountains Center since 1991. A former National Park Service interpretive ranger, she received her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and her BS in Environmental Science from the Evergreen State College. Her poems and prose appear in the Riverteeth Journal of Nonfiction Narrative, Anchorage Daily News, Mountain Gazette, and Going Alone (Seal Press 2004). She has taught writing at Prince William Sound Community College, University of Alaska Fairbanks and currently serves on the full time faculty at Clatsop Community College in Astoria, Oregon. She owns land and a cabin just south of McCarthy Creek.
Meals & Accommodations
The Wrangell Mountains Center facility includes a meeting, hall, dining room, library and other quiet rooms for writing as well as a garden and cooperatively run kitchen. Tasty meals (mostly vegetarian) are included in the price of the workshop. In keeping with the Center's commitment to cooperative living and sustainable systems writers are expected to contribute to daily chores surrounding preparation and clean-up of meals and garden upkeep. A cook is on staff to oversee the kitchen. Camping is available for free at a private site a five minute walk away. Participants also have the option to rent a bed at the historic Commissioner's Cabin in downtown McCarthy. Please contact us early to ensure availability. The full service McCarthy Lodge is located just down the street. Call (907) 554-4402 for reservations. Participants should plan to arrive in McCarthy for a 6:00pm dinner on August 12th. The workshop ends with breakfast on August 18h.