Authors

Dan L. Walker is an Alaskan homesteaders’ son who grew up to become a teacher and a writer.  He is the author of Secondhand Summer published in 2016 by Alaska Northwest Books. He has worked as a chef, innkeeper, merchant seaman, fisherman, and carpenter.  Drawing from these storied experiences, he has published blogs http://mybearlake.blogspot.com/, essays, professional articles, and fiction in magazines, literary journals, and online.  With more than thirty years of experience in education, Dan was named Teacher of the Year for the state of Alaska in 1999.  Today, Dan works with schools in rural Alaska and shares life on a lake near Seward, Alaska with his college sweetheart and muse, Madelyn.

The daughter of a Tennessee railroad man, author Nancy N. Gates fondly recalls family train adventures as a young child. She and her husband, Chris, raised their six children in Alaska and passed along the joy of train travel aboard the Alaska Railroad. Nancy has written and edited work for newspapers, magazines, anthologies, and Alaska travel guides. She co-authored The Alaska Homesteader’s Handbook.

MaryLee Hayes (left) and Angie Slingluff (right) worked for decades as editors for the Alaska Women Speak, a journal that gave voice to women across Alaska. The anthology is a compilation of some of the journal’s best work and a lasting legacy to the many women who contributed over the years.

Born in Massachusetts, Doug Capra came to Alaska in 1971 and taught school on the Aleutian Islands and in Seward. After retiring from teaching, he went to work as a ranger to guide visitors through Kenai Fjords National Park. Doug has written extensively about Alaska history and served on the board of the Alaska Historical Society. The one-woman show that Capra wrote and directed about Alaska Nellie, Into Alaska a Woman Came, ran for five summers in Seward. He is currently writing plays about Rockwell Kent and Josephine Sather, whose stories are told in his book, The Spaces Between: Stories from the Kenai Mountains to the Kenai Fjords. These days Doug works as a private guide and naturalist aboard cruise ships that sail from Japan to Russia, Dutch Harbor, Kodiak and along the Inside Passage of Alaska and Canada. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in English from Northeastern University. He lives in Seward, Alaska, with his wife Cindy.

Author Taylor Hoku Hayden was nine years old when she first visited Portage Glacier, Alaska. She was holding a small chunk of ice in her hand when she heard a sound like thunder and turned to watch a piece of ice calve from the glacier and crash into Portage Lake. Today the glacier has receded so far that it is no longer in view. Hello Water! Snowflakes to Glaciers, A Wild Alaska Story is Taylor’s first children’s picture book. She is an air traffic controller and mother of two young boys.

Illustrator Molly Trainor grew up in Nome, Alaska and as a girl enjoyed very few boundaries. It was this freedom that allowed her to daydream and create with abandon. Although she and her family have moved many times over the years, she has found that her work is still greatly informed by the time she spent creating during those long Alaska winters as a child. She is a graphic illustrator for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, designing interpretive signs. She has two children.

Kaylene Johnson-Sullivan is a long-time Alaskan who lives in Palmer. She has found adventure on Denali, the Chugach Mountains, and as a wrangler and cook in the Brooks Range. Her award-winning articles have appeared in Alaska magazine, the Los Angeles Times, the Louisville Review and other publications. Her books include Our Perfect Wild: Ray and Barbara Bane’s Journeys and the Fate of the Far North; Canyons and Ice: The Wilderness Travels of Dick Griffith; A Tender Distance: Adventures Raising My Sons in Alaska; Trails Across Time: History of An Alaska Mountain Corridor; and Portrait of the Alaska Railroad. You can find her website at kaylene.us