Update from Antarcticans
One of the great pleasures of editing anthologies is the sense I have of creating a literary community around a place, subject or activity that I love. That certainly is the case with Antarctica: Life on the Ice. Recently, some of the contributors sent updates about their activities. Since their talents are varied and their interests range around the world, I thought I'd share their words about their lives.
Slightly embarrassed to say that I am
still here in Antarctica, trying to make it through the five-month-day, but
feeling honored by being able to tag along after Jules and her
hardscrabble army of Basque liberationists, torches thrust skyward and
bodices ripped away at the shoulder. Still revising Novel #2, The Winter
of My Discount Tent, making tentative and incremental progress on
it, which is continuously undone when I discover some fatal defect in
the plot that forces me to rewrite it yet again - Anyway. The
hope is to have it ready for someone else's eyes by the time I leave here in
February.
Also doing a lot of painting. Very soothing
paintings. Mostly makeovers of famous works, with an Antarctic theme. Above is Tina's World - Tina Green out at Siple Dome last season.
--Karen Joyce
I
drove the Alaska Pipeline haul road from Valdez to Deadhorse in August for a
book chapter. I'm due to start work in January as the founding director of the
Center for Art + Environment at the Nevada Museum of Art come January, but will
again be working in Australia and the Atacama Desert of Chile this next
year.
--William Fox
The big news on my end is that my book on
meteorite hunters is set to come out in spring/summer 2009 + the reprint of
Hope is the Thing with Feathers is set to come out then too. I turned in the
last big revision of THE FALLEN SKY a couple of weeks ago, promptly got a cold
(some celebration) and I'm happily turning to some Utah essays and helping
Tarcher/Penguin plan p.r. for the books. All that to the good--a nice
counterbalance to budget cuts at Utah State, which are putting Isotope, the
magazine I edit, at some risk. I hope we'll pull through that. And if you're
not subscribing, please do! And if you have a rich uncle...
--Chris Cokinos
I'm trying to stay put for a while and have been
living in Vail, Colorado for the last 9 months (longer than I've stayed
anywhere in the past 6 years). I'm still regularly writing book reviews and
doing other freelance writing work as it comes along...and I'm taking my stab
at yet another book proposal--this one on the topic of a literary adventure in
the footsteps of William Wordsworth. To keep my sanity (ha--and have health insurance
for a while), I'm working comms in the Eagle County 911 center--alternating
moments of hilarity and tragedy.
—Traci J. Macnamara
My last novel, Biting the Apple, came out a year
ago. Since then I did a wonderful and challenging trip in the Peruvian
Andes and just returned from a decadent (why not spend all my money, it’s all
evaporating anyway?) trip in Sicily where the most strenuous thing I did was
navigate cobblestones (which oddly make the body ache more than rocky mountain
passes).
--Lucy Jane Bledsoe
Kris (as in Kristen Hutchison) has been with me to Armenia a couple
times. Last time we were there she joined the Peace Corps by leaving the
hotel and walking down the street to them. (Weird to work in a place
where we have an active Peace Corps group deployed.) She got into
teaching English as a second language.
Kris and I just finished a small vacation in Az. Hiked the
desert for old time's sake read about here.
--Joe Mastroianni
Since retiring from NSF in 2005 I've mainly been keeping the boat
running that Lynn and I live on and talking to researchers and others about the
intersection of science and societal concerns regarding the Chesapeake
Bay. We write an occasional column for a newspaper called Bay Weekly;
Lynn has assembled the columns and her photographs into a web site. We may have a book in us, too, but despite the many
writers I sent to the Antarctic I've never done one.
--Guy Guthridge
I'm still working for UNAVCO (GPS
science support), but went part-time last year in August and have been bopping around a
bit--two months in Africa (Ethiopia and Tanzania) on project and then 'pleasure' (travel
doesn't always turn out to be fun...) and a few weeks here and there working in CA and
WY--and now am mostly working on some web content stuff at UNAVCO. It's
kind of nice to be in one place for a while. But I'm also ready for big adventure again.
I'm not working on any writing projects
in particular, just trying to get my creative juices flowing and periodically posting photos
and stories to myblog.
I'm getting inspired reading about all
the writing everyone else is doing, though. Guess I better get on it!
--Beth Bartel
So there I was writing a weekly column
for Salt Lake City. It was in the Salt Lake City Weekly and I wrote about my
favorite subject--me and me doing cheap things around Salt Lake. The column was
called "Cheap Shot."
My photo was in the paper each week and
I was beginning to get recognized around town. People bought my drinks at bars
and owners of restaurants would come out and shake my hand. Everyone hoping
that I'd mention them in my next column. Life was good. Life was great. Then I asked
the newspaper for a raise.
Now I'm delivering mail for the United
States Post Office.
--Phil Jacobsen
To read Phil’s columns go to: www.slweekly.com